Boris Lensky

Schubin, Ossip, 1854-1934Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

2.7

Word count: 405K words
Chapters: 41

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.Boris Lensky by Ossip SchubinAuthor: Schubin, Ossip, 1854-1934,Language: English, Class: PT: Language and Literatures: Germanic, Scandinavian, and Icelandic literatures, Release Date: Mar 5, 2011

Editor's review

Ossip Schubin was a narrative writer well received by readers of her time in late nineteenth-century German literature, and this work continues her familiar path of social manners and psychological portraiture. The book is named after a character, which means the reading focus is on the person: his circumstances, his choices, and how those around him judge him form an ironic social portrait. The style has the leisureliness of the era’s long novels, with ample exposition, and dialogue carries much of the character delineation; once drawn in, readers find that the network of relationships is itself the attraction. For Chinese readers, the book’s value lies more in documentation and comparative reading: it shows how late nineteenth-century German popular long fiction handled class, reputation, and emotion, and it can serve as a sample for understanding where women writers stood at the time. Note that this is an English translation, and the narrative pace is slow, suiting patient readers who take their time.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers studying late nineteenth-century German literature and popular long fiction
Readers interested in the history of women writers and comparative translation
Readers of foreign fiction accustomed to slow pacing and character relationships
Learners needing public-domain texts for translation practice or textual analysis

Not a good fit for

Readers seeking strong plot and fast-paced reading
Readers hoping for modern annotations and detailed background introductions
Readers uninterested in nineteenth-century social manners narrative

Reading tips

Read the first few chapters to sort out the relationships; make your own character list for reference.
Pay attention to dialogue; character is mostly revealed through speech and others’ judgments.
For research, check the version and translation information against the original German title.

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 author, Schubin, known in the Chinese-speaking world?

Ossip Schubin has been little translated in the Chinese-speaking world, and ordinary readers are unfamiliar with her, but she has a place in the study of late nineteenth-century German literature. You need not presuppose knowledge of the author’s background to read this book; simply enter it as a novel of social manners.

Is this book in English or German?

What Project Gutenberg contains is an English translation; the original is in German. The translation’s language bears the marks of its time, with many long sentences. For research, check the original German title and publication information as well, so as not to judge the original style solely from the translation.

What if the plot feels slow?

The appeal of such nineteenth-century long novels lies not in density of events but in the subtle attitudes within character relationships and social scenes. Slow down and read each chapter as a small social tableau, or read the chapters with concentrated dialogue first and then go back to the narrative passages.

Comments

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About the author

Schubin, Ossip, 1854-1934 Author

Schubin, Ossip (1854–1934) was a novelist active in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, though details of her life remain limited in publicly available sources. Judging from the eleven works held in the collection, she wrote chiefly long-form narratives centred on love, family, and personal destiny. 'Gloria Victis!' unfolds emotional entanglements in a romantic style, while 'Countess Erika's Apprenticeship' and 'Erlach Court' involve aristocratic settings and themes of growth. She blended romantic colouring into popular plots, and some works evoke Austrian regional and historical atmosphere, as in 'O Thou, My Austria!' Titles such as 'The Story of a Genius' and 'Felix Lanzberg's Expiation' also suggest an interest in genius and atonement. Overall, she was a popular novelist known for plot-driven storytelling, and her works offer a window into the romance and family narratives of her era.