The Widow

Helen RowlandProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.0

Word count: 113K words
Chapters: 12

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 Widow [To Say Nothing of the Man] by Helen RowlandAuthor: Rowland, Helen, 1876-,Language: English, Class: PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature, Release Date: Apr 27, 2010

Editor's review

The Widow is by Helen Rowland, an American writer of humorous essays; its subtitle, "To Say Nothing of the Man," already signals its target: it takes the widow's perspective to poke fun at marriage, the sexes, and social custom. Rowland excels at aphoristic one-liners and irony; her prose is light but often sharp, suited to browsing in spare moments and to serving as a sample of early twentieth-century American newspaper humor. The electronic edition was prepared by Project Gutenberg and is in the public domain, so the barrier to reading is low. Read as a light social comedy of manners, it earns a knowing smile; readers seeking systematic gender argument will need to judge its period limitations for themselves. Overall, it is a small book for casual reading, quotation, and discussion rather than a serious academic work.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Casual readers who enjoy British and American humorous essays and aphoristic short pieces
Readers interested in early twentieth-century American social custom and ideas about the sexes
English learners who need short English materials for reading practice
Organizers looking for light-topic texts for a book club

Not a good fit for

Readers expecting systematic gender studies or sociological theory
Readers who prefer long narrative fiction with a complete plot
Readers with little tolerance for the humor and values of a century ago

Reading tips

Read in short chapters, a few pages at a time, jotting down aphoristic lines you like.
Read with the period in mind, distinguishing the author's banter from the real social norms of the time.
Read with friends and use the book's views on the sexes to spark discussion of the present.

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.

FAQ

Is this book a novel or a collection of essays?

From the available information, it is a work of humorous essays by Helen Rowland centered on the topic of the widow; the subtitle makes clear that it offers banter about men and marriage customs. It is not a novel with a continuous plot and is better read as aphoristic short pieces.

How difficult is the English? Is it suitable for beginners?

The original is in the early twentieth-century American newspaper humor style: sentences are not long, but they contain irony and period usage. Readers with an intermediate foundation can read it through with a dictionary; beginners should choose short passages, grasp the general idea first, and then look up key vocabulary.

Why recommend the Gutenberg edition?

Project Gutenberg offers free public-domain ebooks that are easy to obtain and free of copyright obstacles, making them suitable for low-cost sampling or for classroom and book-club materials. For actual layout and proofreading quality, refer to the downloaded file.

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About the author

Helen Rowland Author · American · 1876–1950

Helen Rowland (1876–1950) was an American journalist and humorist born in Washington, D.C. For many years she wrote the column "Reflections of a Bachelor Girl" for the New York World, using witty, incisive epigrams to discuss love, marriage, and relations between the sexes. Her concise, often ironic style gave her a distinctive voice in the newspaper columns of her day. Her works include Reflections of a Bachelor Girl, The Rubáiyát of a Bachelor, The Sayings of Mrs. Solomon, The Widow, and A Guide to Men: Being Encore Reflections of a Bachelor Girl, most of them built around observations of single women and married life. Public information about her education and the details of her life is limited; existing accounts rely mainly on the writing found in her column and books.