The Young Engineers in Arizona or, Laying Tracks on the Man-killer Quicksand

Hancock, H. Irving (Harrie Irving), 1868-1922Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 2.4
Word count
267K words
Chapters
27

Tags

English Originals Young Adult Fiction Engineering PracticeDesert PerilBoy HeroCourage and ResponsibilityGrowing Up

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 Engineers in Arizona; or, Laying Tracks on the Man-killer QuicksandAuthor: Hancock, H. Irving (Harrie Irving), 1868-1922,Language: English, Class: PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature, Release Date: May 1, 2005

Editor's review

This work is an engineering adventure story by H. Irving Hancock, a representative author of American juvenile adventure fiction in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and is a free public-domain eBook from Project Gutenberg. The "Man-killer Quicksand" in the title identifies the central geographical challenge of the story: laying railroad tracks through the dangerous quicksand country of Arizona. For Chinese readers, its value lies not in refined literary technique but in offering a sample of where Gilded Age American railroad construction, the imaginative ideal of the engineering profession, and the juvenile coming-of-age narrative intersect. The descriptions of engineering details, teamwork, and wilderness perils convey the era's admiration for technological heroes. It is best read at the intersection of juvenile adventure literature and popular engineering history—suitable both as extensive reading material in the original English and as a supplementary text for studying the "engineer figure" in American popular literature. The electronic edition is free and easily obtained, suited to chapter-by-chapter reading rather than completion in one sitting.

Who it's for

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Reading tips

  1. Read the first chapter to gauge narrative pace and vocabulary difficulty before deciding on intensive or extensive reading.
  2. Record railroad- and quicksand-related engineering terms as you go and look them up together afterward.
  3. Read alongside background material on American railroad construction history to understand the story's context.

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

FAQ

Is this book in Chinese or English? How difficult is it to read? This is an English public-domain eBook released by Project Gutenberg, with the original text in English. As a juvenile adventure novel, its sentences are relatively straightforward, but it contains late-nineteenth-century engineering and geographical vocabulary; it suits readers with intermediate English reading ability, and beginners can read it extensively with a dictionary.
What does "Man-killer Quicksand" in the title refer to? It is the central geographical obstacle in the story, referring to the dangerous, deadly quicksand country of Arizona. The young engineers must lay tracks there; the title signals the main conflict scene of the engineering adventure rather than a real place name.
Is this book suitable for studying American railroad history? It can serve as popular supplementary material, not rigorous historical source material. It reflects how the public of the time imagined railroad construction and the engineering profession, and is best read alongside formal railroad history to help understand the engineering-hero narrative at the social and cultural level.

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About the author

Hancock, H. Irving (Harrie Irving), 1868-1922 Author

H. Irving Hancock (Harrie Irving Hancock, 1868–1922) was an American writer of juvenile fiction, best known for series adventure novels. The library holds 39 of his works, centered on school life, military academy training, and nautical adventure. Representative titles include The Grammar School Boys of Gridley, Dave Darrin's Second Year at Annapolis, Dick Prescott's First Year at West Point, and The Motor Boat Club and The Wireless. These stories generally follow young companions through growth, discipline, and teamwork, with brisk plots and the patriotic, inspirational tone characteristic of their era. His academy and naval tales often use specific school years, cruises, and sea missions as narrative threads, portraying brave and dutiful youths; they found a readership among early twentieth-century American young people. Public information about his life and nationality is limited, so this note outlines his writing mainly on the basis of the works held in the library.