The Voyage of the Steadfast: The Young Missionaries in the Pacific

William Henry Giles KingstonProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 2.4
Word count
164K words
Chapters
17

Tags

English Originals Missionary VoyageAdventure JourneyPacific AdventureOcean LegendHumanistic CareTest of FaithForging CourageExotic CultureCross-Cultural ViewYouth Reading

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.The Voyage of the "Steadfast": The Young Missionaries in the Pacific by KingstonAuthor: Kingston, William Henry Giles, 1814-1880,Language: English, Class: PZ: Language and Literatures: Juvenile belles lettres, Release Date: Oct 17, 2007

Editor's review

The Voyage of the Steadfast comes from the pen of the prolific nineteenth-century British author William Henry Giles Kingston, its subtitle identifying it as a tale of "the young missionaries in the Pacific." Kingston was known for his boys' adventure and sea stories, and this book follows his familiar formula: a long voyage supplies the framework, and the perils of the sea, exotic settings, and missionary purpose are woven together, bearing the clear moral and religious stamp of Victorian juvenile literature. For today's reader its value lies more in the historical and stylistic record—one can see how the age told young readers about distant lands, faith, and civilization, and observe how adventure narrative served an edifying aim. As a public-domain eBook from Project Gutenberg, it is easy to search and read alongside other texts. It is best read with a historical eye, enjoying the rhythm of the seafaring passages while noting ideas that call for scrutiny today, and treating it as a window onto nineteenth-century British juvenile reading.

Who it's for

A good fit for

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Reading tips

  1. Begin with the subtitle and chapter titles to grasp the structure of the voyage, then proceed chapter by chapter without forcing yourself to read it all at once.
  2. Jot down passages that reflect the ideas of the age as you read, and review and examine them together afterwards.
  3. Keep a map of Pacific routes at hand to build a sense of the story's geography.
  4. Compare it with other sea stories by the same author to observe the repetition and variation in his narrative formula.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12
  13. 13
  14. 14
  15. 15
  16. 16
  17. 17

FAQ

Is this book suitable for children to read on their own? It was originally written for young people, but it dates from the nineteenth century, its English style differs greatly from today's children's books, and it takes a clearly missionary and didactic stance. Adults should look through it first, or use it as material for reading aloud together and discussing historical ideas, rather than handing it to young readers to read alone.
Why is the religious element so strong? The subtitle already identifies the protagonists as "young missionaries," and in Kingston's Victorian age, boys' adventure stories often drew their narrative drive from faith and a civilizing mission. This element is part of the book's historical context; readers can observe it as an idea of its time rather than accept it as neutral narration.
What should I keep in mind when reading the electronic edition? This is a public-domain English eBook released by Project Gutenberg, chiefly in plain text, so a reader that supports a dictionary and bookmarks is recommended. Nineteenth-century spelling and sentence patterns may differ from modern English; with long sentences, break them into their main clauses first and then work out the meaning.

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

William Henry Giles Kingston Author · British · 1814–1880

William Henry Giles Kingston (1814–1880) was a British author of adventure stories for young readers. Born in London, he spent part of his youth with his father in Porto, Portugal. He rose to fame in 1851 with Peter the Whaler and thereafter devoted himself to tales of the sea and exploration, writing more than a hundred books over his lifetime and also translating works by Jules Verne. His notable works include The Three Midshipmen, Captain Cook: His Life, Voyages, and Discoveries, and Great African Travellers: From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley, most of them drawing on seafaring, exotic adventure, and the deeds of the British Navy. He excelled at linking the adventures of young protagonists with informative and moral content, in briskly paced stories rich in maritime atmosphere that were widely popular with young readers in the Victorian era. The collection here contains 133 of his works. Public information on his early education and specific experiences is limited, so no conjecture is offered here.