The Young Cavalier: A Story of the Civil Wars

Westerman, Percy F. (Percy Francis), 1876-1959Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 2.6
Word count
305K words
Chapters
31

Tags

English Originals War and Military FictionHistorical Fiction Military StrategyAdventure JourneyHeroismComing of AgeLoyalty TestRoyalist View

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 Young Cavalier: A Story of the Civil Wars by Percy F. WestermanAuthor: Westerman, Percy F. (Percy Francis), 1876-1959,Language: English, Class: PZ: Language and Literatures: Juvenile belles lettres, Release Date: May 11, 2013

Editor's review

This work is a historical adventure novel by the British author Percy F. Westerman, set against the English Civil Wars and typical of boys' historical stories. Westerman was skilled at writing tightly plotted adventure fiction for young readers, and this book follows that pattern: amid war, the protagonist faces choices of allegiance, tests of loyalty, and personal growth, with a brisk narrative pace and a strong historical atmosphere. As a public-domain e-book, its value lies in offering readers an accessible entry into seventeenth-century English society and the war, while also displaying the narrative interests and values of boys' historical fiction from the late Victorian to early twentieth century. It is suitable as introductory material for reading English originals and as lightweight supplementary reading for those interested in the English Civil Wars. Because it was written long ago, its treatment of war, allegiance, and gender carries clear marks of its era, and modern readers should read it with a critical eye.

Who it's for

A good fit for

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Reading tips

  1. Look up the basic timeline and main factions of the English Civil Wars before starting the text to reduce the background burden.
  2. Proceed chapter by chapter; after each chapter, summarise the plot and characters' situations in two or three sentences, combining language and comprehension.
  3. Note how the book depicts Cavaliers and Roundheads, and jot down era-biased statements for critical examination.
  4. Read alongside modern historical novels on the same subject to appreciate how writers of different periods handle history.

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

FAQ

Is this book suitable for learning English? It suits readers with intermediate or higher English reading ability. The sentence structures lean toward early twentieth-century narrative prose; the vocabulary is not very difficult, but the sentences are long. As close-reading material in the original, it can expand historical and military vocabulary. Readers with weaker foundations should start with a simplified edition or an annotated version.
Do I need to know about the English Civil Wars before reading? You do not need systematic knowledge, but understanding the basic conflict between King and Parliament and the opposition between Cavaliers and Roundheads will significantly reduce obstacles. The novel's main line is the characters' adventures, and the historical background mainly serves the plot; readers can fill in background knowledge as they go.
Are there period limitations I should watch for? Yes. As an early boys' historical novel, it carries the attitudes of its time in its stance on factions, its gender roles, and its depiction of war, and its simplification of historical events is fairly obvious. Readers should treat it as a period text and remain critical of its judgments rather than taking them as objective historical fact.

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About the author

Westerman, Percy F. (Percy Francis), 1876-1959 Author

Percy F. Westerman (1876–1959) was a British author known for adventure novels for young readers. Public information about him is limited, and few details of his life are available. The library holds 36 of his works, mostly naval and war stories: A Watch-dog of the North Sea and Under the White Ensign are set against naval operations in the Great War; The Nameless Island is a modern Robinson Crusoe tale of survival on a deserted island; and The Quest of the Golden Hope returns to seventeenth-century maritime adventure. He also wrote early aviation fiction such as The Dreadnought of the Air, and battlefield stories like A Lively Bit of the Front, about the New Zealand Rifles on the Western Front. His novels are tightly plotted, with attention to technical detail and discipline, and were influential in early twentieth-century English boys' fiction.