The Lodger

Lowndes, Marie Belloc, 1868-1947Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

4.0

Word count: 205K words
Chapters: 21

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.下宿人 by Marie Belloc LowndesAuthor: Lowndes, Marie Belloc, 1868-1947,Language: Japanese, Class: PR: Language and Literatures: English literature, Release Date: Jun 26, 2010

Editor's review

This is the Japanese translation of Marie Belloc Lowndes's classic suspense novel The Lodger, a free e-book from Project Gutenberg. The story revolves around a series of murders and a rented room, gradually uncovering the suspicious identity of a mysterious lodger through the eyes of the landlord and his wife; atmosphere and psychological pressure are its greatest strengths. Lowndes excels at planting unease in everyday scenes, rendering ordinary people's suspicion, fear and moral struggle with fine precision. Its value lies in experiencing the narrative rhythm of early psychological suspense and seeing how tension accumulates from the trivialities of daily life. Suited to sustained reading on a quiet evening, and also useful as a reference text on suspense writing and narrative technique; the Japanese translation can serve as supplementary material for Japanese reading practice. Note that this is a public-domain e-book whose typesetting and proofreading follow the source scan; pay attention to the hints embedded in dialogue and resist the urge to skim.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers who enjoy classic psychological suspense and crime fiction
Writers studying early suspense narrative structure and atmosphere
Learners with some Japanese who want to use fiction for reading practice
Readers interested in public-domain e-books from Project Gutenberg

Not a good fit for

Readers of modern thrillers expecting fast pacing and heavy action
Readers with no Japanese reading ability who only want a Chinese translation
Readers impatient with open-ended suspense and slow buildup

Reading tips

Read through once to grasp the direction of the suspense, then revisit the landlord couple's psychological shifts and suspicious details.
Jot down the timeline and characters' movements as you read to follow how the clues are laid out.
If the Japanese is difficult, consult the English original or a Chinese translation for key passages.
Read in relatively uninterrupted stretches to preserve the continuity of the suspenseful atmosphere.

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

What level of Japanese is needed for this translation?

The original is an English novel and this is a Japanese translation in a somewhat literary style. Readers with intermediate Japanese who can work through long sentences with a dictionary will fare more smoothly; beginners may use it as supplementary reading alongside another translation, but it is not recommended as a first choice for beginners.

Will the e-book differ from a printed edition?

This book comes from a Project Gutenberg public-domain e-book, with text based on its released version; it may differ from later publisher editions in notes, typesetting and wording of the translation. Treat the e-book text as the reference, and consult other editions if you encounter occasional formatting issues.

What kind of suspense does the story center on?

The central suspense concerns the connection between the mysterious lodger's identity and the series of murders; it is psychological suspense rather than graphic description. Readers follow the landlord couple's perspective as anomalies emerge, with tension arising from everyday suspicion and uncertainty rather than action scenes.

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About the author

Lowndes, Marie Belloc, 1868-1947 Author

Marie Belloc Lowndes (1868–1947) was a British novelist known for psychological suspense and crime fiction. The collection includes sixteen of her works, among them The Lodger, The End of Her Honeymoon, Studies in Love and in Terror, What Timmy Did, The Uttermost Farthing, Jane Oglander and Studies in Wives. Her fiction often draws on hidden fears within ordinary domestic settings; her restrained, deliberate prose builds tension layer by layer and reveals her characters' inner suspicion and unease. The Lodger is her best-known work and has been adapted for film and television several times, leaving a mark on later suspense narrative. Public information on her early education and private life is limited, so no conjecture is offered here.