A Boy's Town

Howells, William Dean, 1837-1920Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

4.0

Word count: 412K words
Chapters: 42

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.A Boy's Town by William Dean HowellsAuthor: Howells, William Dean, 1837-1920,Language: English, Class: PZ: Language and Literatures: Juvenile belles lettres, Release Date: May 8, 2009

Editor's review

This work is a memoir-like narrative in which Howells looks back on small-town life through a boy's eyes. The prose is gentle and restrained, carrying the everyday atmosphere of a nineteenth-century American Midwestern town. Its value lies not in dramatic plot but in its minute observation, reconstructing the streets, family, playmates, and growing pains seen by a boy; readers can see how individual memory is transformed into literature. As a public-domain eBook, it serves well as an entry point to American regional literature and the tradition of childhood writing, and also as extensive reading material in English. Read it slowly, as a series of slices of life rather than a story driven forward; for writers, its selection of detail and control of narrative distance are especially worth noting.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers who enjoy nineteenth-century American literature and depictions of regional life
Literature enthusiasts interested in childhood memoir narratives and coming-of-age themes
Learners seeking English extensive reading material who prefer plain, understated narration

Not a good fit for

Readers expecting strong plot and fast pacing
Readers with little interest in the details of old-time small-town life

Reading tips

Proceed chapter by chapter; after each chapter, note one scene or character detail that struck you most.
Treat it as English extensive reading: read through first, then return to long sentences and old-fashioned expressions.
Read alongside the social background of nineteenth-century American small towns to understand the period marks in the narration.

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 a novel or a memoir?

The available information places it in juvenile literature, presenting small-town life through a boy's perspective with a clear memoir-like quality. Don't worry about strictly separating fiction from fact; focus on how the narrator organizes childhood experience.

How difficult is the English, and what level is it for?

Written in the nineteenth century, the book has long sentences and period vocabulary, so it is not an entry-level text. It suits readers with intermediate or higher English reading ability; when you meet old-fashioned expressions, skip them for now and keep reading.

Why is extensive reading recommended for this book?

The plot moves slowly, and the book's value lies in everyday detail and narrative tone. Word-by-word intensive reading easily becomes tiring; reading through first to grasp the overall atmosphere, then returning to passages of interest, better suits its character.

Comments

Find this book

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Howells, William Dean, 1837-1920 Author

William Dean Howells (1837–1920) was an American author and literary editor, with 107 works held in the collection. His writing spans novels, travel books, memoirs, and literary essays, and his representative works include My Mark Twain, Indian Summer, A Boy's Town, A Modern Instance, and A Hazard of New Fortunes. Howells drew on close observation of everyday life, writing in a plain style with gentle irony and attending to moral questions and human situations amid social change; his travel book Venetian Life and his memoir Literary Friends and Acquaintance record his journeys and personal recollections of American literary figures. Public information is limited, so biographical details are not elaborated here; readers may turn to the works above to learn about his subjects and style.