A Good Samaritan

Mary Raymond Shipman AndrewsProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.0

Word count: 48K words
Chapters: 5

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 Good Samaritan by Mary Raymond Shipman AndrewsAuthor: Andrews, Mary Raymond Shipman, 1860-1936,Language: English, Class: PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature, Release Date: May 26, 2005

Editor's review

This short story comes from the American writer Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews and belongs to the early twentieth-century tradition of popular fiction, with a narrative built around goodwill and rescue. It is not long, its language bears clear marks of its period, and the plot advances through moral choices and emotional turns among the characters, making it a suitable sample for understanding the character of American popular literature of that time. As a public-domain ebook from Project Gutenberg, it is very easy to obtain and light to read. Readers can treat it as a short literary walk, finish it on a commute or a quiet afternoon, and feel a plain narrative ethic. Note that the story's background and language habits are somewhat distant from the present, some expressions need to be understood in context, and one should not expect modern psychological depth or complex structure.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers who want to read a short English novel in spare moments
Literature lovers interested in early twentieth-century American popular fiction
People who need public-domain English texts for reading practice or trial translation

Not a good fit for

Readers expecting modern narrative pacing and strong plot conflict
Beginners whose English reading is not yet fluent and who need annotation support

Reading tips

Read through once to grasp the direction of the story, then read a second time paying attention to the moral wording in the characters' dialogue.
Skip expressions that feel strongly period-specific at first, and return to key passages after finishing.
If using it for translation practice, choose one dialogue passage and one narrative passage for comparative treatment.

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 short story?

Judging from the Project Gutenberg entry information, this is a short narrative work belonging to the short story category. It can be read in one sitting or over two or three sessions; there is no need to plan reading at the pace of a full-length novel.

What is the approximate English difficulty level?

The text has early twentieth-century vocabulary and sentence habits. Overall it is not very difficult, but some expressions are distant from modern English. Readers with intermediate or higher English reading ability can finish it fairly smoothly; beginners may need a dictionary.

Why does the year for this book on Project Gutenberg show as 2019?

The year in a Project Gutenberg entry usually refers to the year the electronic version was posted or updated, not the year the work was first published. The author Andrews lived from 1860 to 1936, and the work itself is an earlier public-domain text.

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About the author

Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews Author · American · 1860–1936

Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews (1860–1936) was an American woman writer, born on April 2, 1860, in Mobile, Alabama, and died in 1936 in Syracuse, New York. She made her name with short stories published in magazines, many of them in Scribner's Magazine. Her best-known work, The Perfect Tribute, centers on Lincoln and the Gettysburg Address and sold more than 600,000 copies, making it her most widely circulated book. Beyond historical subjects, she also wrote outdoor stories for boys, often touching on courage, kindness, and the character of ordinary people, as seen in works such as The Courage of the Commonplace and Joy in the Morning. Writing for a popular readership in a plain, accessible style, she held a certain influence in the magazine fiction of her day. Public information about her early education and private life is limited.