A Tender Attachment: A Farce

Baker, George M. (George Melville), 1832-1890Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

2.3

Word count: 39K words
Chapters: 4

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 Tender Attachment: A Farce by George M. BakerAuthor: Baker, George M. (George Melville), 1832-1890,Language: English, Class: PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature, Release Date: Dec 31, 2014

Editor's review

A Tender Attachment: A Farce is a one-act farce by the American writer George M. Baker, available as a free eBook from Project Gutenberg. The farce as a genre drives its humor through misunderstanding, coincidence, and exaggerated situations; it is short, its character relationships are clear, and it reads at a brisk pace. Baker long wrote for the theater, and his works were mostly aimed at stage performance and popular entertainment, so this book has a strong feel for dialogue and tight exchanges between characters, making it a light sample of nineteenth-century American popular drama. The Gutenberg edition is the original English text in plain formatting, focused on access to the text rather than performance notes. Readers can read it straight through as a short play, paying attention to staging and the rhythm of dialogue; those interested in dramatic adaptation or reading aloud might also try reading it by role to experience how farce creates comedy through pace and misunderstanding.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers interested in nineteenth-century American popular theater and the farce genre
Enthusiasts looking for a short English play for role-reading practice
Learners who need light original English material and prefer dialogue-based texts
Literary fans studying early American stage entertainment

Not a good fit for

Serious fiction readers expecting deep psychological portrayal or complex character arcs
Beginners who need a Chinese translation or detailed theatrical-historical notes
Readers who dislike comedy built on exaggerated misunderstanding

Reading tips

Read the whole play first to sort out the characters and the chain of misunderstandings, then revisit the dialogue at key turns.
Try reading by role, using tone and pauses to feel how farce makes laughs through rhythm.
While reading, note the stage directions and characters' entrances and exits, and imagine how it would play on a small stage.
Read it alongside popular American comedy of the same period to observe the stock devices of misunderstanding and coincidence.

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 a complete play or a novel?

According to the entry information, this book is a farce script, a dramatic genre made up of dialogue and stage directions rather than narrative fiction, and it is fairly short.

What are the features of the farce genre?

Farce usually advances its plot through misunderstanding, coincidence, mistaken identity, and exaggerated situations; its characters are types, its pace is brisk, and its aim is laughter rather than deep psychological portrayal.

Is the original English hard to read?

As a popular stage work, its language is mainly colloquial dialogue in fairly short sentences, so overall it is not difficult; nineteenth-century usage and stage directions may pose minor obstacles, and a dictionary can help.

Can it be used for reading-aloud practice?

Yes. The script is dense with dialogue and tight in its character exchanges, so roles can be assigned for reading in parts, using tone and pauses to grasp the comic rhythm; it is light material for practicing spoken English and expressiveness.

Comments

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About the author

Baker, George M. (George Melville), 1832-1890 Author

George Melville Baker (1832–1890) was an American playwright best known for his one-act farces and short stage pieces. Public information about his life and nationality is limited, and surviving accounts focus mainly on his plays themselves. The eighteen works held here lean toward light, humorous stage sketches: Gentlemen of the Jury, Poison, and A Mysterious Disappearance are all labeled farces, relying on misunderstanding, coincidence, and exaggerated characters for comic effect, and are suited to amateur companies and home performance. He also wrote three-act melodrama such as Nevada or, The Lost Mine, along with seasonal and children's pieces like Summer Days and The Merry Christmas of the Old Woman who Lived in a Shoe. His work balances entertainment with practical stageability, in plain language and compact structure, and is representative of nineteenth-century American popular drama publishing.