Back to the Woods

George V. Hobart (George Vere Hobart; pseud. Hugh McHugh)Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 2.7

Word count: 86K words
Chapters: 9

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.Back to the Woods by George V. HobartAuthor: Hobart, George V. (George Vere), 1867-1926,Language: English, Class: PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature, Release Date: Jun 1, 2004

Editor's review

Back to the Woods is an English-language literary work by George V. Hobart, classified under American literature and now available as a free eBook from Project Gutenberg. Hobart was active from the late nineteenth to the early twentieth century, and his writing often shows a vein of popular humor and observation of social manners. The book is short, and its language carries the colloquial flavor and narrative rhythm of its time; for today's readers it can serve both as a light English sketch and as a sample of early twentieth-century American popular literature. The great value of the Gutenberg edition lies in its low barrier to access and clean formatting, making it easy to dip into on an electronic device. One caveat: this is a public-domain work aimed at English-language readers, and the text itself has no modern annotations, so names, slang, and period background must be looked up by the reader. It is better suited as supplementary reading material for English practice than as a core text for systematic literary study.

Who it's for

A good fit for

English learners looking for short, moderately difficult public-domain books to practice reading
Readers interested in early twentieth-century American popular literature and humorous sketches
Teachers who need free electronic texts for classroom extensive reading or book-club selection
Readers accustomed to reading English originals in fragments on phones or e-readers

Not a good fit for

Beginning readers who want detailed annotations and introductions
Readers who prefer contemporary narrative pacing and strong plots
Readers with little patience for English slang and colloquial expressions from a century ago

Reading tips

Read through once for the gist, then go back a second time to look up unfamiliar words and period expressions, avoiding frequent interruptions.
Read one or two chapters a day, then summarize the plot in a sentence or two to check comprehension.
Read it alongside other American public-domain humorous short pieces to get a feel for the language style of the same period.
Mark unfamiliar names or places and look them up together after finishing, keeping the reading flow smooth.

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

What English level does this book roughly require?

It is popular English writing from the early twentieth century, with short sentences but containing slang and colloquial expressions of the time, so the overall difficulty is moderate. Readers with some English foundation who are used to reading originals can try it; beginners are advised to use a dictionary or a parallel translation.

What are the features of the Gutenberg edition?

Project Gutenberg provides free public-domain electronic texts, mainly in plain text, easy to read and search on various devices. It usually contains no modern introduction, annotations, or illustrations, so readers need to supplement the background themselves.

Do I need to know the author's background to read this book?

You don't need to do a lot of homework beforehand, but knowing that Hobart wrote in the American popular-writing milieu of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries helps in understanding the book's humor and language habits. Looking back at the author's life after reading often brings out the period flavor of the text more fully.

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

George V. Hobart (George Vere Hobart; pseud. Hugh McHugh) Author · Canadian-American · 1867–1926

George V. Hobart (born George Vere Hobart; pen name Hugh McHugh, 1867–1926) was a Canadian-born American humorist and playwright. Born in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, he later moved to the United States. Under the pen name Hugh McHugh he wrote the "John Henry" series of humorous novels, including You Can Search Me, Skiddoo!, Back to the Woods, Get Next!, The Silly Syclopedia and You Should Worry Says John Henry. His style is playful and witty, relying on colloquial dialogue and absurd situations for comic effect. Beyond fiction, he wrote more than fifty musical comedy scripts and numerous songs, and several of his works were adapted into films. He died in 1926 in Cumberland, Maryland. Public information is limited, and his works belong chiefly to popular humor and musical comedy; six of them are held in this collection.