Waring's Peril

King, Charles, 1844-1933Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

2.9

Word count: 250K words
Chapters: 25

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.Waring's Peril by Charles KingAuthor: King, Charles, 1844-1933,Language: English, Class: PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature, Release Date: Jan 3, 2008

Editor's review

Charles King's Waring's Peril is a typical late-nineteenth-century American popular adventure novel, from an author known for military and frontier subjects. Through the protagonist Waring's experiences in peril, the book lays out tense plotting and moral tests, with a brisk pace and mounting suspense, carrying the masculine temper and plain narrative typical of adventure fiction of that era. As a free Project Gutenberg e-book, it is extremely easy to obtain and serves as an accessible sample for understanding the face of nineteenth-century American popular literature and the adventure narrative tradition. Readers need not demand the psychological depth of modern fiction, but may instead attend to how it organizes crises, shapes heroes, and handles themes such as loyalty and courage. For readers studying American frontier narrative, military fiction, or early mass reading culture, it offers a primary text for analysis; for general readers, it can serve as a tightly plotted, moderately lengthened diversion.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers who enjoy nineteenth-century American adventure and military fiction
Literature students studying American popular literature and the frontier narrative tradition
English readers who want free access to original public-domain books
General readers looking for a short, plot-driven novel as diversion

Not a good fit for

Readers who prefer modern psychological realism or complex narrative structures
Those unaccustomed to nineteenth-century English expression and narrative pacing
Readers expecting in-depth historical research or scholarly annotated editions

Reading tips

Read one chapter first to get a feel for the narrative pace, then decide between close and casual reading
Keep an English dictionary handy to look up nineteenth-century usage and military vocabulary
Combine with background material on American frontier history to understand the novel's period context
After reading, review the key crises the protagonist faces and analyze the logic of his responses

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 suitable for English beginners?

Not very. This is a late-nineteenth-century English original, with period features in syntax and vocabulary and terms from military and adventure settings, so it is a heavy load for beginners. Readers with intermediate or higher reading ability who are willing to look up words are more suitable.

What are the features of the Project Gutenberg edition?

Project Gutenberg provides free electronic texts, and this book is one of its public-domain e-books, easy to download and search, but it usually contains no modern scholarly notes or introduction. Readers need to supply background knowledge themselves; it suits those using it for original-text reading and textual analysis.

Do I need to know the author's other works before reading this book?

No. The book's plot is relatively self-contained and can be read directly. If you are interested in Charles King's style in military and frontier subjects, you can read more of his similar works afterward to compare narrative techniques and thematic continuities.

Comments

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About the author

King, Charles, 1844-1933 Author

Charles King (1844–1933) was an American author. Public information about him is limited, and few systematic records of his life details are available. The library holds twenty-eight of his works, commonly classified under inspirational growth. Representative titles include Campaigning with Crook, and Stories of Army Life; Starlight Ranch, and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier; A Wounded Name; Warrior Gap: A Story of the Sioux Outbreak of '68; From the Ranks; Sunset Pass or, Running the Gauntlet Through Apache Land; Lanier of the Cavalry or, A Week's Arrest; and An Apache Princess: A Tale of the Indian Frontier. As the titles suggest, his writing draws largely on American frontier and military life, centering on Indian frontier conflicts, cavalry experience, and everyday camp life. The works combine adventure narrative with elements of personal growth, emphasizing plot momentum and the recreation of period atmosphere, and offer some reference value for understanding nineteenth-century American popular literature on Western military themes.