Burned Bridges

Bertrand William SinclairProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.2

Word count: 444K words
Chapters: 45

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.Burned Bridges by Bertrand W. SinclairAuthor: Sinclair, Bertrand W., 1881-1972,Language: English, Class: PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature, Release Date: Aug 19, 2005

Editor's review

Burned Bridges is a novel by the Canadian-born American writer Bertrand W. Sinclair (1881–1972), belonging to the category of American and Canadian literature. Sinclair spent his early years working in logging, mining, and shipping in the northwestern reaches of North America, and his novels mostly take frontier life and human fate as their subject; this work continues that realistic orientation. As a public-domain ebook, its most direct value lies in presenting the narrative rhythm and linguistic texture of early twentieth-century North American popular fiction: the plot advances through characters' circumstances and choices rather than the dense reversals of modern suspense, and it reads with a kind of plain, immediate sense of place. For readers studying American–Canadian frontier literature, or those who wish to understand the ecosystem of Project Gutenberg public-domain books, this novel is a suitable sample. In terms of reading context, it is better suited as supplementary reading within a literary-historical framework than as a fast-paced diversion. Because the book is in the original English and dates from an early period, its language and sentence patterns bear the marks of their time, and Chinese readers may read it with annotations or in a parallel edition.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers studying American and Canadian frontier literature, as a textual sample
Readers who enjoy realistic English novels of the early twentieth century
Learners who wish to practice reading long English texts through public-domain books
Readers interested in the ecosystem of Project Gutenberg ebooks

Not a good fit for

Readers seeking fast-paced suspense or strong plot reversals
Beginners unused to original English texts without annotations
Readers hoping for a modern urban-themed reading experience

Reading tips

Read the first few chapters first to gauge the narrative pace and language difficulty before deciding whether to read through or selectively
Keep an English dictionary or electronic annotation tool at hand and look up old industry terms as they appear
Consult background material on American and Canadian frontier literature to understand the characters' circumstances
If time is limited, prioritize the middle and later sections where plot turns cluster, then go back to earlier setup

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 in Chinese or English? How difficult is it to read?

This is the original English edition, released by Project Gutenberg. The language is early twentieth-century English long-form prose, with rather long sentences and some vocabulary marked by period and region, making it somewhat difficult for non-native readers; reading with a dictionary is recommended.

Why does the recommendation not describe the specific plot?

The available material provides only the author, category, and release information, and contains no plot summary. To avoid inventing details that do not exist in the book, the recommendation focuses on the work's historical background, literary category, and ways of reading it; readers must grasp the specific plot through their own reading.

Is this book suitable as English-learning material?

It can serve as advanced reading material, but is not suitable for complete beginners. It is better suited to learners who already have some ability to read long English texts and wish to engage with literary narrative; reading with annotations and a dictionary, and in sections, is recommended to reduce the burden.

Comments

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About the author

Bertrand William Sinclair Author · Canadian (Scottish-born) · 1881–1972

Bertrand William Sinclair (1881–1972) was a Scottish-born Canadian novelist. Born in Edinburgh, he moved to Canada with his mother as a child and in his youth worked as a cowboy in Montana, experiences that later fed into his writing. He is known for novels depicting life in the American West and in the logging, fishing and ranching communities of British Columbia, often portraying ordinary people laboring and surviving in the natural settings of the Northwest, with solid plots and a strong sense of place. His representative works include Big Timber: A Story of the Northwest, Poor Man's Rock, Burned Bridges, The Hidden Places, North of Fifty-Three, Raw Gold and The Land of Frozen Suns; he wrote roughly fifteen novels in all. Public information on the details of his life is limited, and the present account is based mainly on the subjects and background of his fiction.