Adela Cathcart, Volume 2

MacDonald, George, 1824-1905Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.0

Word count: 284K words
Chapters: 29

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.Adela Cathcart, Volume 2 by George MacDonaldAuthor: MacDonald, George, 1824-1905,Language: English, Class: PR: Language and Literatures: English literature, Release Date: Sep 1, 2005

Editor's review

Adela Cathcart, Volume 2 is a frame narrative novel by George MacDonald: with a young woman, Adela, undergoing a course of recovery as the thread, a group of people take turns telling stories, stories nested within stories, with the coloring of fairy tale, fantasy, and moral allegory. Volume 2 continues this structure, with the stories turning more inward and touching on themes of imagination, faith, and the healing of the heart. MacDonald was an important Victorian writer whose fantasy writing influenced later fantasy literature, and this book suits readers who want to know his fiction rather than only his fairy tales. It may best be read as a "collection of stories," with attention to how the frame narrative links the individual tales; readers expecting the plot momentum of a long novel may find the pace loose. As a public-domain ebook, it is convenient for searching and reading in sections, and suits slow reading and revisiting.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers who enjoy Victorian literature and frame-narrative novels
Readers interested in George MacDonald's fantasy and allegorical writing
Readers who wish to read slowly and in fragments through a story-collection format
Literature students studying narrative structure in the nineteenth-century English novel

Not a good fit for

Readers of popular fiction expecting tight plotting and strong dramatic conflict
Readers who need self-contained, complete stories and do not wish to read a second volume in a series
Readers impatient with allegorical moralizing and the Victorian moral tone

Reading tips

Read Volume 1 first or learn the frame setup before entering Volume 2, to avoid losing the thread of character relationships.
Treat each embedded story as an independent short piece, pausing afterward to savor its meaning.
Note the echoes between the frame narrative and the stories, and record recurring images and themes.
With the English original, read in sections; when a long sentence comes up, grasp the paragraph's gist first, then read closely.

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

Can I read Volume 2 without having read Volume 1?

You can, but you will lack the groundwork of the frame characters and situation. The book unfolds through people telling stories, and Volume 2 continues the setup of Volume 1; starting directly may leave the relationships among the tellers and the overall intent unclear. It is advisable to know at least the outline of Volume 1's frame before reading.

Is this book a fairy tale or a long novel?

It is a frame-narrative novel with multiple embedded stories, containing fairy-tale, fantasy, and allegorical elements, but the whole revolves around Adela's recovery and the stories people tell; it is not a standalone collection of fairy tales. It may be read as a long work linking characters and themes through stories.

How difficult is MacDonald's book to read?

As a nineteenth-century English novel, it has long sentences and old-fashioned diction and includes allegory and moral discussion; non-native English readers may need to look up words and slow down. The stories themselves can be read in sections, and the difficulty lies more in language style and narrative structure than in plot complexity.

Comments

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About the author

MacDonald, George, 1824-1905 Author

George MacDonald (1824–1905) was a Scottish author known for his fairy tales, fantasy novels and religious sermons. This library holds 68 of his works, including The Princess and the Goblin, The Princess and Curdie, At the Back of the North Wind, Phantastes: A Faerie Romance for Men and Women, Sir Gibbie and the three series of Unspoken Sermons. His fairy tales often centre on children, weaving adventure with questions of morality and faith in plain, imaginative prose, while his fantasy works are regarded as forerunners of modern fantasy literature and have influenced later writers of the genre. Public information is limited, so no biographical details are speculated here; his works alone show him to be skilled in both storytelling and spiritual reflection, writing for children and adults alike.