The Wanderers; or, Adventures in the Wilds of Trinidad and Orinoco

William Henry Giles KingstonProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 2.6
Word count
440K words
Chapters
45

Tags

English Originals Foreign Literature Nature ObservationSea VoyageWilderness SurvivalTrial of CourageComing of AgeAdventure NarrativeSouth American MysteryExotic CultureColonial EraYouth 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 Wanderers; Or, Adventures in the Wilds of Trinidad and Orinoco by KingstonAuthor: Kingston, William Henry Giles, 1814-1880,Language: English, Class: PZ: Language and Literatures: Juvenile belles lettres, Release Date: May 15, 2007

Editor's review

The Wanderers; Or, Adventures in the Wilds of Trinidad and Orinoco is set in Trinidad and the Orinoco basin, following the wanderers' adventures in the tropical wilderness. Kingston typically builds his adventure framework on exotic geography and natural scenery; the tropical jungle, river voyages and unfamiliar settings are the most noteworthy features of this book. The story has the typical feel of nineteenth-century boys' fiction: adventure drives the plot, interspersed with tests of courage, mutual aid and character, and while the pace is not tight, the sense of scene is vivid. As a free Project Gutenberg e-book, it suits extensive reading in the original English and research into colonial travel literature, and offers readers interested in South American physical geography an imagination filtered through its era. It should be read as a period text rather than a realistic travelogue in the modern sense.

Who it's for

A good fit for

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Reading tips

  1. Before reading, look up the basic geography of Trinidad and the Orinoco River to build a sense of space.
  2. Mark descriptive passages separately as material for studying English descriptive style.
  3. After each chapter, summarize the journey in one or two sentences to keep the main thread clear.
  4. Read as a period text and maintain a critical awareness of its colonial perspective.

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
  18. 18
  19. 19
  20. 20
  21. 21
  22. 22
  23. 23
  24. 24
  25. 25
  26. 26
  27. 27
  28. 28
  29. 29
  30. 30
  31. 31
  32. 32
  33. 33
  34. 34
  35. 35
  36. 36
  37. 37
  38. 38
  39. 39
  40. 40
  41. 41
  42. 42
  43. 43
  44. 44
  45. 45

FAQ

Can the geographical descriptions in the book serve as travel reference? They should not be used directly as travel or geographical reference. This is a nineteenth-century adventure novel; geographical elements serve the narrative and carry the imagination and prejudices of its time. For accurate South American geography and ecology, consult modern sources and read this book as a literary text.
Is this novel suitable for classroom teaching? It can serve as supplementary material but not as a main textbook. Its language and perspective bear clear marks of its era; it is suitable for selected passages in discussions of colonial literature and the tradition of boys' adventure fiction, and teachers should provide background and critical guidance so students do not take its descriptions as objective fact.
Must it be read in chapter order? Reading in order is recommended. The story advances along the wanderers' route, and character relationships and situations develop continuously across chapters. Skipping around easily loses the thread of the journey and the characters' motives; reading in chapter order better conveys the cumulative effect of the adventure narrative.

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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.