Brotherly Love

Sherwood, Mrs. (Mary Martha), 1775-1851Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

2.8

Word count: 107K 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.Brotherly Love by Sophia Kelly and Mrs. SherwoodAuthor: Sherwood, Mrs. (Mary Martha), 1775-1851,Language: English, Class: PZ: Language and Literatures: Juvenile belles lettres, Release Date: Feb 1, 2004

Editor's review

Brotherly Love is a juvenile literary work co-authored by the English writer Mrs. Mary Martha Sherwood and Sophia Kelly, included in Project Gutenberg under the category of juvenile belles lettres. Mrs. Sherwood was an influential nineteenth-century English author of children's literature whose works often center on family ethics and moral instruction. This book revolves around brotherly affection; it is short in length, written in the typical style of nineteenth-century English children's literature, with a plain plot and sincere emotion, making it a suitable introductory sample for understanding the character of Victorian children's reading. As a public-domain eBook, readers can obtain the original text free of charge for extensive English reading, literary-historical reference, or parent-child shared reading. One caveat: the language and ideas in the book bear distinct marks of their era; readers should maintain a historicized perspective, attending to its emotional expression and narrative manner rather than judging it harshly by contemporary standards.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Literature lovers interested in the character of nineteenth-century English children's literature
Learners needing free public-domain English materials for extensive reading
Readers studying Mrs. Sherwood's works or Victorian children's literature
Parents seeking short English readings for parent-child shared reading

Not a good fit for

Adult fiction readers seeking complex plots and strong dramatic conflict
Young readers who prefer contemporary language and fast-paced narrative
Readers sensitive to or easily put off by religious and moral didacticism

Reading tips

First read through the whole text to grasp the story, then return to note how the brotherly relationship is portrayed
Place the work in the context of nineteenth-century children's literature, noting differences in period ideas as you read
For English study, close-read dialogue passages to build familiarity with old-fashioned expressions

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 complete full-length novel?

Judging by its Project Gutenberg classification, it belongs to juvenile belles lettres and is relatively short—closer to a novella or short story than a full-length work. The exact chapters and word count can be confirmed by consulting the original text on the Project Gutenberg page; readers need not expect a complex long-form structure.

Can readers with average English proficiency read it?

The language bears the features of nineteenth-century English children's literature; sentence patterns and vocabulary are somewhat older than contemporary reading matter but not difficult. Readers with intermediate English reading ability can finish it with a dictionary; it is advisable to sample the first few pages to gauge the difficulty.

Why is it recommended to pay attention to its historical background?

Mrs. Sherwood's writing often contains family ethics and moral instruction, a common feature of children's reading of the time. Understanding this background helps explain why the characters act as they do and prevents dismissing the work's value simply by contemporary standards.

Comments

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About the author

Sherwood, Mrs. (Mary Martha), 1775-1851 Author

Mrs. Sherwood (Mary Martha, 1775–1851) was a British writer of children's literature active in the first half of the nineteenth century. Public information about her is limited, and details of her life are not widely documented, yet five of her works are held in this collection, indicating a steady output in the children's reading market of her time. Her representative works include The Fairchild Family, The Young Lord, and Other Tales, Soffrona and Her Cat Muff, Shanty the Blacksmith, and Brotherly Love. Judging from these titles, her writing centers on family life, children's education, kinship, and moral instruction, often conveying themes of character formation through stories and allegorical narration in plain language suited to young readers. Her works reflect the early Victorian tendency in children's literature to combine edification with entertainment.