An Old Man's Prayer

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

2.3

Word count: 12K words
Chapters: 2

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.An Old Man's Prayer by George M. BakerAuthor: Baker, George M. (George Melville), 1832-1890,Language: English, Class: PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature, Release Date: Jan 10, 2015

Editor's review

This is a short work by George M. Baker, made available as a free electronic text by Project Gutenberg. Baker was a nineteenth-century American playwright whose works were mostly aimed at stage performance and popular reading, with plain language and openly expressed emotion. This piece takes an old man's prayer as its point of entry; it is brief and serves as a sample for understanding nineteenth-century American popular literature and religious expression. The text is in the original English, and the electronic edition is easy to search and cite. When reading, one may place it back in the social and religious context of nineteenth-century America, note the narrator's tone and the emotional layers behind the prayer, and read it alongside contemporary poetry and sermons. Because the work is short and background information is limited, it is better suited as supplementary material for a literary history class or as English extensive reading material than as a core text for systematic research.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers interested in nineteenth-century American popular literature
Self-learners who need short English extensive reading material
Students studying the relationship between religious emotion and literary expression
Users of Project Gutenberg electronic texts

Not a good fit for

Readers seeking a full-length narrative
Advanced researchers hoping for detailed author biography and annotations
Beginners unaccustomed to reading original English texts

Reading tips

Read through once to grasp the overall tone of the prayer, then mark emotional shifts paragraph by paragraph.
Read alongside background material on nineteenth-century American religion to understand the social function of the prayer genre.
Compare with Baker's other plays or contemporary American poetry to observe features of popular literary expression.
Use the search function of the electronic edition to locate keywords and make a simple thematic word-frequency review.

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?

No. It is a short work by George M. Baker centered on an old man's prayer. It is brief and belongs to poetry or short literary texts rather than the novel.

Why does the recommendation mention Project Gutenberg?

Because this version was organized and released by Project Gutenberg as a free electronic text. Knowing this helps readers understand the source and access method of the edition and suggests that the text may lack modern scholarly annotations.

Do I need to know the author's biography before reading?

Not systematically. Baker was a nineteenth-century American playwright, and knowing this period background is enough. The work itself is short; one can start directly from the tone and prayer content and add background as interest dictates.

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.