The Woman Thou Gavest Me: Being the Story of Mary O'Neill
Caine, Hall, Sir, 1853-1931Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019
Rating 3.3- Word count
- 1.3M words
- Chapters
- 128
Tags
English Originals Women's Fiction Family BondsLove EntanglementsGrowing UpSocial CritiqueMoral DilemmaSelf-ReflectionSummary
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 Woman Thou Gavest Me; Being the Story of Mary O'Neill by Sir Hall CaineAuthor: Caine, Hall, Sir, 1853-1931,Language: English, Class: PR: Language and Literatures: English literature, Release Date: Jan 4, 2005Editor's review
This novel follows the experiences of Mary O'Neill, with the moral conflicts and emotional tension common to late nineteenth-century popular English fiction. Hall Caine was a widely read storyteller of his day, skilled at advancing plot through dramatic scenes and rendering the pull between individual destiny and social norms and religious ideas with considerable theatricality. The book's value lies more in literary and socio-cultural history: it shows how popular fiction of the late Victorian and Edwardian eras handled questions of women's circumstances, marriage, and faith, and is useful to readers studying the circulation of popular literature and changing ideas about gender. As a public-domain e-book, this edition is easy to obtain and search in full text, making it suitable as supplementary course material or a research sample of genre fiction. A caveat: the narrative pace and moral assumptions bear clear marks of their era, and modern readers may find the plot slow and the characters' motives in need of historical context; it should not be judged simply by the standards of contemporary fiction.Who it's for
A good fit for
- Scholars and students of late nineteenth-century popular English fiction and late Victorian culture
- Literary readers interested in Hall Caine's work and the bestsellers of his time
- Researchers concerned with the historical presentation of women's circumstances and marriage in literature
- Readers who need the original text of a public-domain English novel for course use or citation
Not a good fit for
- Readers who prefer fast-paced modern narrative and have limited patience for classic popular fiction
- General readers with limited English reading ability who need a Chinese translation
- Readers seeking a biography of the author or detailed textual scholarship
Reading tips
- Read a chapter or two first to get a feel for the narrative pace and style, then decide whether to read closely or select key chapters.
- Pay attention to the depiction of women's circumstances and marriage, and compare it with other novels of the same period.
- For research, consult background material on Hall Caine's life and times alongside the text.
- The plot is long; read in stages and note character relationships as you go to avoid confusion.
About the publisher
Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971Project 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
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
- 11
- 12
- 13
- 14
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FAQ
What is this book broadly about?
The novel centers on Mary O'Neill's experiences, involving conflicts between personal feeling, marital choice, and social norms, with the moral and emotional drama typical of late nineteenth-century popular literature. For specific plot details, consult the original text, and read it in light of the gender and religious ideas of the period.Is it suitable as English-learning material?
It can serve as extensive reading, but the text dates from the late nineteenth to early twentieth century, with long sentences and period vocabulary, so it is not suitable for beginners. Readers with some English foundation and an interest in classic fiction will benefit most.Does this e-book include an introduction or notes?
According to the available information, this is a public-domain e-book released by Project Gutenberg, consisting mainly of the original text, with no modern introduction or detailed notes indicated. For background explanation, pair it with literary history materials or relevant scholarship.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
Caine, Hall, Sir, 1853-1931 AuthorSir Hall Caine (1853–1931) was a British novelist active from the late Victorian era into the early twentieth century. Public information about his life is limited, so biographical details should not be guessed at; his twenty-one works held in this collection nonetheless show where his literary interests lay. Many of his novels are set on the Isle of Man, his home, including The Manxman, The Deemster and A Son of Hagar. They are known for intricate plots and intense emotion, dealing with family ties, love and marriage, and moral conflict in a popular melodramatic mode. He also wrote Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, recalling his acquaintance with the painter, while works such as The Christian and The Scapegoat explore faith and redemption. Classified here under inspirational growth, his novels are often read in Chinese as stories of characters maturing through hardship, combining readability with moral concern.