America, Volume 4

Joel CookProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

2.2

Word count: 384K words
Chapters: 39

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.America, Volume 4 (of 6) by Joel CookAuthor: Cook, Joel, 1842-1910,Language: English, Class: F1001: North America local history: Canada, Release Date: Mar 11, 2013

Editor's review

This is Volume 4 of Joel Cook's six-volume America, a work of North American local history, released as an eBook by Project Gutenberg in 2019. Cook was born in 1842, and his writing reflects the perspective of the late nineteenth to early twentieth century. The book surveys local landscapes and histories across North America and serves as a historical source for understanding the region's geography and culture of that era. As a public-domain eBook, it is easy to search and cite, but it lacks a modern scholarly introduction and notes, its narrative pace is slow, and it may feel remote to contemporary readers. Read it with historical-geographical questions in mind, as a primary source rather than an introduction to general history.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers interested in North American local history and nineteenth-century travel writing
History enthusiasts who need public-domain English source material for research or citation
Readers who prefer eBooks and free access to texts

Not a good fit for

Beginners seeking a modern general-history introduction
General readers who prefer fast-paced narrative or strong plot
Readers unaccustomed to original English texts and older prose styles

Reading tips

Start with the table of contents and chapter openings, then read closely the regions that interest you
Read alongside maps or geographical references to compensate for the older text's sense of space
Compare the book's observations with present-day conditions and keep brief reading notes

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 the complete America?

No. This is Volume 4 of a six-volume work and covers only part of it. Read on its own, it is not the whole picture; combine it with other volumes or related sources for the full scope.

Can readers with average English read it?

You can try, but the book was written long ago, in an older style with long sentences. Readers with average English should use a dictionary and read slowly, starting with chapters of interest rather than reading straight through.

What are the features of this electronic edition?

It is a free public-domain eBook released by Project Gutenberg, easy to download, search, and cite, but it has no modern editor's introduction or detailed notes, so readers must supply background knowledge themselves.

Comments

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About the author

Joel Cook Author · American · 1842–1910

Joel Cook (1842–1910) was an American journalist, writer and politician. Born in Philadelphia, he edited the Philadelphia Public Ledger, worked as the American correspondent for The Times of London, and was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1907. As a writer he focused on travel and regional description, with a documentary, closely observed style. His representative works include England, Picturesque and Descriptive and the multi-volume America, Picturesque and Descriptive. The library holds seven of his works, most of them concerned with landscapes and cultures in Europe and America, combining the immediacy of travel writing with a systematic, chronicle-like quality that offered contemporary readers a fairly comprehensive picture of distant places. Cook died in Philadelphia in 1910.