Barbara Blomberg — Volume 01

Georg Moritz EbersProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.3

Word count: 101K words
Chapters: 11

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.Barbara Blomberg — Volume 01 by Georg EbersAuthor: Ebers, Georg, 1837-1898,Language: English, Class: PT: Language and Literatures: Germanic, Scandinavian, and Icelandic literatures, Release Date: Apr 1, 2004

Editor's review

This is Volume 01 of Georg Ebers's historical novel Barbara Blomberg, from the Project Gutenberg public-domain e-book series. Ebers was both an Egyptologist and a novelist, and his historical fiction is known for its detailed period scenes and for the tension characters face between power and emotion. As the opening volume, this one serves to introduce the characters and establish the atmosphere of the age; its narrative weight lies in preparation rather than resolution, letting readers observe how nineteenth-century German historical fiction uses historical material as a skeleton and fictional characters as flesh. Its reading value lies in showing how a long historical work begins: the layered sense of city, court, and burgher life, and the slow unfolding of characters' fates. It suits as an introductory text for the study of German historical fiction and for readers interested in sixteenth-century European court and burgher society. Being the opening volume, its plot advances relatively restrainedly and is better suited to patient readers reading continuously.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers studying the opening structure and narrative techniques of nineteenth-century German historical fiction
Readers interested in sixteenth-century European court and burgher life
Readers able to accept public-domain English e-texts and preferring slow-paced historical narrative
Literature lovers wanting to know how Ebers composed his multi-volume historical novels

Not a good fit for

Readers expecting a complete story and clear ending in a single volume
Readers preferring modern fast-paced historical novels or strong dramatic conflict
Beginners who need detailed notes and a scholarly introduction to enter the text

Reading tips

Read this volume as groundwork for the characters and period background, without rushing to find a plot climax.
Note the author's descriptions of urban space and court etiquette; this is the main attraction of his historical fiction.
Learn the basic public-domain background of the historical figure Barbara Blomberg before entering the fictional narrative.
If you plan to read later volumes, briefly review the character relationships after finishing this one to avoid confusion later.

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

Does Volume 01 contain a complete story?

No. It is the opening volume of a long multi-volume work and mainly completes the introduction of characters and the laying out of the period background; the plot is not resolved at the end of the volume, and later volumes are needed for the complete narrative.

Is Barbara Blomberg a historical figure?

Barbara Blomberg is a sixteenth-century figure recorded in historical sources, and Ebers wrote a historical novel on her. The novel engages in literary invention within a framework of historical fact, and readers should not take it as a strict biography.

Is this electronic edition suitable for scholarly citation?

It is a Project Gutenberg public-domain electronic text, usable for general reading and preliminary research. For formal scholarly citation, check authoritative or scholarly critical editions, and note that it lacks modern notes and an introduction.

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About the author

Georg Moritz Ebers Author · German · 1837–1898

Georg Ebers (1837–1898) was a German Egyptologist and novelist. Born in Berlin in 1837, he served as a professor at the University of Leipzig. His major contribution to Egyptology was the discovery, editing, and publication of the famous Ebers Papyrus, which provided valuable material for the study of ancient medical texts. At the same time, he devoted himself to spreading Egyptological knowledge through literature, writing historical novels such as An Egyptian Princess and Uarda. These works weave the social life and historical settings of ancient Egypt into their narratives, making specialized scholarship more accessible to general readers. His works number 172 in the library's collection, including the serialized volumes of An Egyptian Princess and Cleopatra, which shows how widely his historical novels circulated. Overall, Ebers combined scholarly rigor with a novelist's gift for popular expression, occupying a distinctive place in the popularization of Egyptology in the nineteenth century.