The Wild Man of the West: A Tale of the Rocky Mountains

Robert Michael BallantyneProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.0
Word count
522K words
Chapters
53

Tags

English Originals Foreign Literature Wilderness SurvivalAnimal CompanionsWild ManCourage and GrowthReverence for NatureFrontier NarrativeNative AmericansRocky MountainsWestern Region FlavorYouth Adventure

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 Wild Man of the West: A Tale of the Rocky Mountains by R. M. BallantyneAuthor: Ballantyne, R. M. (Robert Michael), 1825-1894,Language: English, Class: PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature, Release Date: Feb 15, 2008

Editor's review

This is R. M. Ballantyne's wilderness adventure set in the Rocky Mountains, in the classic tradition of Victorian juvenile adventure fiction. Its value lies not in formal experimentation but in preserving intact a period's way of imagining the American West, wilderness survival, and the figure of the "savage." Readers can see how mountain travel, hunting, and encounters with Indians are organized into a narrative of moral growth, and can sense how the author blends geographical knowledge, natural observation, and adventure suspense. As a free Project Gutenberg e-text, it is extremely accessible and suits supplementary reading in English literature courses on imperial adventure fiction or the juvenile coming-of-age narrative. It is best read within the context of nineteenth-century Anglo-American juvenile literature, with attention to the narrator's attitudes toward wilderness and cultural others; that is more rewarding than simply following the plot.

Who it's for

A good fit for

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Reading tips

  1. Read one chapter first to gauge the narrative pace and vocabulary difficulty, then decide whether to read through or select key chapters.
  2. Keep pen and paper to record three threads: mountain setting, character encounters, and moral turning points, for an overall grasp.
  3. For coursework, pair it with an introductory essay on the features of imperial adventure narrative.
  4. Do not look up every unfamiliar place name or species; keep the plot coherent first, then annotate later.

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
  46. 46
  47. 47
  48. 48
  49. 49
  50. 50
  51. 51
  52. 52
  53. 53

FAQ

Is this book good for practicing English reading? It suits upper-intermediate and advanced learners. The text is nineteenth-century English with long sentences and much description, and its vocabulary is period-specific, so reading it through takes patience. Try one chapter to gauge the difficulty and treat it as close-reading material rather than speed reading, with dictionary work and paragraph summarizing.
Is it history or fiction? It is a fictional adventure story, a juvenile adventure novel, not historical reportage. It uses the geography of the Rocky Mountains as a backdrop, and reflects the imagination and narrative conventions of the author's era; it should not be cited as Western history or as ethnography of Native peoples.
Do I need to know the author first? Not strictly, but it helps. Knowing that Ballantyne worked within the nineteenth-century juvenile adventure tradition makes it easier to understand why the book emphasizes masculine growth, wilderness testing, and moral trial. For casual reading, you can go straight into the text without difficulty.

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About the author

Robert Michael Ballantyne Author · United Kingdom · 1825–1894

Robert Michael Ballantyne (1825–1894) was a Scottish writer of children's literature, born in Edinburgh. At sixteen he went to Canada and worked for the Hudson's Bay Company for six years, an experience that later supplied material for his adventure stories; after returning to Scotland in 1847 he devoted himself to writing and produced more than a hundred adventure novels, of which ninety-seven are held in this collection. His representative works include The Coral Island, The Dog Crusoe and his Master, Black Ivory, The Lighthouse and Martin Rattler, mostly drawing on seafaring, desert-island and frontier adventure, with tight plots and solid detail that combine instruction with appeal for young readers. He was also skilled in watercolour painting. Public information on his early education and private life is limited.