A Proposal Under Difficulties: A Farce

Bangs, John Kendrick, 1862-1922Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

2.9

Word count: 47K 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 Proposal Under Difficulties: A Farce by John Kendrick BangsAuthor: Bangs, John Kendrick, 1862-1922,Language: English, Class: PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature, Release Date: Aug 20, 2011

Editor's review

This is a one-act English farce by the American humorist John Kendrick Bangs. It is short and serves as an accessible introduction to late nineteenth-century American light comedy. Its humor comes mainly from situational mismatch and witty dialogue: a proposal that should go smoothly is interrupted by one obstacle after another, with characters pulled back and forth between embarrassment and self-justification, producing a steady stream of laughs. It does not aim at deep social critique; instead it lightly exposes the awkwardness and self-dramatization of everyday social life. For Chinese readers, it can be read as light entertainment in English and as a window onto the courtship etiquette and the speech of gentlemen and ladies of the period. As a public-domain ebook, the edition is designed for portable reading and lacks detailed notes; readers with some English foundation are advised to use a dictionary or a bilingual edition to better appreciate the rhythm and the humor of the dialogue.

Who it's for

A good fit for

English learners who want light reading practice with a short English work
Readers interested in late nineteenth-century American humor and one-act plays
School drama clubs or English classes that need short script material
General readers who enjoy light comedy and casual reading

Not a good fit for

Serious literary readers looking for deep social critique or complex character development
Beginners whose English is too weak to read the original dialogue independently
Scholarly readers who want detailed notes and background commentary

Reading tips

Read through once to grasp the plot, then revisit key dialogue to see how the humor builds from misunderstandings.
Read the characters' lines aloud, paying attention to pauses and tone, to feel the stage rhythm of a one-act play more directly.
When encountering slang or period expressions, first guess from context, then check a dictionary, to avoid frequent interruptions.
After reading, try to list each stage of the obstructed proposal and summarize the comic structure in a few 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.

FAQ

Is this book long or short?

It is a one-act farce and very short—a lightweight read that can usually be finished in one or a few short sessions, suitable for fragmented time or classroom excerpts.

Can readers with average English understand it?

The work is mainly dialogue, and the sentences are not complex, but it contains period expressions and witty humor. Readers with intermediate English can understand it with a dictionary; those with weaker English should start with a bilingual or simplified edition.

Is it suitable for staging?

It is short, with a small cast and clear conflict, making it suitable material for short plays in schools or interest groups. However, the public-domain ebook does not organize detailed stage directions, so productions will need to add their own movement and scene design.

Comments

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About the author

Bangs, John Kendrick, 1862-1922 Author

John Kendrick Bangs (1862–1922) was an American humorist and editor whose life is not widely documented in Chinese-language sources, and public information about him remains limited. The collection here includes 38 of his works, commonly grouped under inspirational and personal-growth reading. Representative titles include The Pursuit of the House-Boat, Olympian Nights, The Water Ghost and Others, The Enchanted Typewriter, R. Holmes & Co., A House-Boat on the Styx, and Toppleton's Client Or, A Spirit in Exile. His writing is known for lighthearted fantasy and parody, often weaving mythology, detective fiction, and the supernatural into satirical comedy with a playful, witty tone. Such works hold a distinctive place in English-language popular literature and have inspired later humorous fantasy fiction, offering today's readers an entertaining glimpse into late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century English comic writing.