A Desperate Voyage

Knight, E. F. (Edward Frederick), 1852-1925Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.5

Word count: 296K words
Chapters: 30

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 Desperate Voyage by E. F. KnightAuthor: Knight, E. F. (Edward Frederick), 1852-1925,Language: English, Class: PR: Language and Literatures: English literature, Release Date: Mar 9, 2012

Editor's review

E. F. Knight was a British writer and traveller active from the late nineteenth to the early twentieth century. A Desperate Voyage takes a sea voyage as its subject and belongs to the public-domain corpus of English literature. Knight himself had a background in sailing and travel writing, and this kind of experience often gives his narratives a concrete, credible texture in the details; storms, ships, and the choices made during a voyage create the main tension of the reading experience. The book suits readers who enjoy traditional adventure narratives and have an interest in maritime subjects, and it also serves as a sample for understanding the character of popular British fiction of the period. The Project Gutenberg edition is a plain-text ebook, and reading it places greater demands on the reader's patience with narrative pacing. It is advisable to proceed chapter by chapter, paying attention to the characters' judgments and changes in difficult circumstances, and to compare the book with similar maritime adventure works after finishing it.

Who it's for

A good fit for

English-language readers who enjoy maritime and sea-adventure subjects
Readers interested in late nineteenth-century British popular fiction
Learners hoping to broaden their English reading through public-domain texts
Teachers who need adventure narrative excerpts for reading practice

Not a good fit for

Readers lacking patience with nautical terminology and old-fashioned narrative pacing
Readers who prefer modern psychological description and tight structure
Beginners who need detailed historical annotations to understand the background

Reading tips

Read the opening chapters first to confirm the narrative pacing, then set a daily chapter plan.
Prepare a glossary of nautical terms and add to it as you read.
After finishing the book, write a timeline of the voyage to sort out the key events.
Read it alongside another maritime adventure novel and compare their narrative techniques.

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 kind of story does this book mainly tell?

Judging from the title and the author's background, this is an adventure narrative centred on a sea voyage and belongs to the category of English literature. The materials do not provide a detailed plot, so readers may understand it as a traditional adventure story built around a perilous voyage, with emphasis on the difficulties encountered and the characters' responses.

Can I understand it without any nautical knowledge?

Yes, but the book may contain vocabulary related to ships and navigation, and a lack of background will affect the understanding of some details. It is advisable to prepare a simple glossary of nautical terms; when technical descriptions that do not affect the main thread appear, you may skip them first and give priority to the characters and the sequence of events, then go back and look up key terms after finishing.

What is the reading experience of the electronic edition like?

This edition is a plain-text ebook released by Project Gutenberg, without layout design or illustrations, and is suitable for reading on an e-reader or mobile phone. It is advisable to adjust the font size and line spacing to reduce fatigue during long reading sessions, and to use the bookmark function to mark progress by chapter so as to proceed in sections.

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About the author

Knight, E. F. (Edward Frederick), 1852-1925 Author

E. F. Knight (Edward Frederick Knight, 1852–1925) was a British writer known for his works on sailing, travel and military observation. Seven of his books are held in the collection, ranging from accounts of his own voyages to travel narratives and wartime reportage. The Cruise of the “Alerte” records a long voyage under sail, while Sailing deals with the craft of seamanship, showing his close familiarity with life on the water. A Desperate Voyage and The Threatening Eye lean toward adventure and suspense. Albania: A Narrative of Recent Travel and Turkey: The Awakening of Turkey, the Turkish Revolution of 1908 reflect his attention to the Balkans and the Ottoman Empire, and The Harwich Naval Forces: Their Part in the Great War turns to naval activity in the First World War. His writing rests on firsthand experience and is concrete and readable. Public information about his life is limited.