Bressant: A Novel

Hawthorne, Julian, 1846-1934Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

2.8

Word count: 560K words
Chapters: 56

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.Bressant: A Novel by Julian HawthorneAuthor: Hawthorne, Julian, 1846-1934,Language: English, Class: PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature, Release Date: Apr 9, 2005

Editor's review

This book is a novel by Julian Hawthorne (son of Nathaniel Hawthorne, author of The Scarlet Letter). It belongs to the tradition of popular narrative fiction in nineteenth-century American literature and is now reissued by Project Gutenberg as a public-domain ebook. For readers interested in the Hawthorne family's literary legacy and the narrative style of the nineteenth-century American novel, it offers a valuable sample: one can observe how the younger Hawthorne handles plot and character, and how his thematic interests differ from his father's. The electronic edition is in the original English, making it suitable as supplementary reading for English literature and convenient for researchers doing textual searches and comparisons. It is best read within the context of nineteenth-century American novel development rather than with the pacing expectations of a contemporary bestseller; the plot development and characterization bear clear marks of their era, and patience with the context will be rewarded. As a public-domain book, it is also well suited to collectors and digital humanities learners as a corpus.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers studying nineteenth-century American literature and the Hawthorne family's work
English literature enthusiasts seeking to broaden their reading with original English texts
Teachers and researchers needing public-domain English fiction as corpus material
General readers interested in the narrative style of classic American fiction

Not a good fit for

Readers who prefer fast-paced contemporary genre fiction with strong plot twists
Beginners with weak English reading skills who need Chinese annotations
Researchers expecting a detailed introduction or scholarly annotated edition

Reading tips

Read the preface and chapter titles first to grasp the main storyline before diving into the text, so you don't give up midway due to the period prose.
Keep a simple character relationship chart and update it as you read to help manage the large cast typical of nineteenth-century novels.
Read it alongside The Scarlet Letter and note the similarities and differences in theme and technique between father and son.
For language learning, read one chapter closely each day, excerpt long sentences, and analyze their structure.

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 written by the author of The Scarlet Letter?

No. The author is Julian Hawthorne, son of Nathaniel Hawthorne, who wrote The Scarlet Letter. Both father and son were American writers, but their styles and major works differ; this book should not be read as a sequel to or direct offshoot of The Scarlet Letter.

Does this edition include a Chinese translation or annotations?

According to the information, this is an English-language ebook released by Project Gutenberg, a free public-domain edition, with no mention of Chinese translation or annotations. Chinese readers will need some English reading ability or should use a dictionary and other aids.

Why does the electronic edition's date differ from the original publication date?

The information shows that the electronic edition was released and reissued much later, while the work itself is a nineteenth-century novel. The listed date usually refers to the electronic version's release, not the original publication year, so readers should not use it to judge when the novel was written.

Is it suitable as English learning material?

It can serve as advanced English reading material, but nineteenth-century novels have long sentences and period vocabulary, so it is not suitable for beginners. It is best used after gaining some English foundation, with a dictionary and notes, focusing on common expressions in narrative texts.

Comments

Find this book

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

Hawthorne, Julian, 1846-1934 Author

Julian Hawthorne (1846-1934) was a prolific writer active from the late nineteenth to the early twentieth century, with twelve works held in this collection. He worked in both fiction and documentary prose, and his subjects range widely: there are socially observant works such as The Subterranean Brotherhood, short-story collections such as David Poindexter's Disappearance, and Other Tales and The Laughing Mill, and Other Stories, and novels including Dust: A Novel, Archibald Malmaison, Idolatry: A Romance, and The Golden Fleece: A Romance. He also wrote Hawthorne and His Circle, an account of the circle around his father Nathaniel Hawthorne that serves as a reference for the Hawthorne family and the literary milieu of the time. His fiction tends to rely on plot twists and suspense, combining romance with observations of social life. Public information on the details of his life and the full scope of his work is limited and awaits further research.