Westward Ho! Or, The Voyages and Adventures of Sir Amyas Leigh, Knight, of

Kingsley, Charles, 1819-1875Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.9
Word count
1.4M words
Chapters
139

Tags

English Originals Historical FictionForeign Literature Historical ReappraisalMilitary StrategySea AdventureVengeance and GratitudeHeroismChivalrous SpiritPatriotismGrowing UpForeign CampaignColonial Era

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.Westward Ho! Or, The Voyages and Adventures of Sir Amyas Leigh, Knight, ofAuthor: Kingsley, Charles, 1819-1875,Language: English, Class: PR: Language and Literatures: English literature, Release Date: May 14, 2006

Editor's review

Westward Ho! is a historical adventure novel by Charles Kingsley set in the Elizabethan era, telling of the knight Amyas Leigh's voyages, naval battles, and adventures in distant lands. Marked by a distinctly Victorian narrative style, it interweaves seafaring scenes with the hero's growth, letting readers feel the grandeur of the Age of Exploration while preserving the linguistic flavor of classic English fiction. As a public-domain ebook, it suits extension reading for English literature courses or free access by readers interested in British historical fiction and maritime adventure. Read it as a window: for the adventure, and to observe how a nineteenth-century writer looked back on the national imagination of the sixteenth century.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Not a good fit for

Reading tips

  1. Read the opening chapters first to get a feel for the language, then decide whether to read closely or select key seafaring passages.
  2. Keep a short cheat sheet of English historical background handy to look up Elizabethan ship and place names.
  3. Mark the protagonist's growth arc separately, then review after finishing to see whether his character change is coherent.
  4. If reading is difficult, pair it with an audiobook or read aloud in sections to lower the barrier of long sentences.

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
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  3. 3
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FAQ

Is this book suitable for English beginners? Not really. It is a nineteenth-century English original with long sentences and somewhat archaic vocabulary, so beginners may get stuck in description and dialogue. It is better suited to readers with upper-intermediate to advanced English reading ability or a strong interest in historical fiction.
Do I need to know Elizabethan history first? Systematic study is not necessary, but basic background on the Age of Exploration and English maritime expansion will clearly improve the reading experience. The book has many geographical and historical terms; look them up as you go, and don't give up for lack of background knowledge.
Is this a children's book? It cannot simply be classified as a children's book. Though an adventure story, its language difficulty and period attitudes are better suited to adult readers; young readers who are interested should read with teacher or parent guidance and note the stance of its historical narrative.

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About the author

Kingsley, Charles, 1819-1875 Author

Charles Kingsley (1819–1875) was a British author, though specific details of his life are limited in publicly available sources. The library holds 48 of his works, commonly classified under inspirational growth. His representative works include Hypatia — or New Foes with an Old Face, The Water-Babies: A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby, Westward Ho!, The Heroes Or, Greek Fairy Tales for My Children, and Yeast: a Problem. These works cover a wide range of subjects, including historical novels set in late antiquity, fairy tales and Greek myths written for children, and novels concerned with social issues. Kingsley's writing often combines narrative, imagination, and moral instruction, with vivid language that conveys themes of growth, responsibility, and belief, and has had some influence on later children's literature and historical fiction.