By Birth a Lady

Fenn, George Manville, 1831-1909Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.2
Word count
603K words
Chapters
61

Tags

English Originals Social ObservationFate and FortuneFamily SecretLove EntanglementsComplex HumanityPsychological InsightIdentity ConstructionPopular NarrativeVictorian EraFemale Perspective

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.By Birth a Lady by George Manville FennAuthor: Fenn, George Manville, 1831-1909,Language: English, Class: PR: Language and Literatures: English literature, Release Date: Oct 26, 2010

Editor's review

By Birth a Lady is another novel by George Manville Fenn, a free English public-domain work from Project Gutenberg. The title suggests that identity and birth are central to the story, a theme common in Victorian fiction, often involving class, reputation, and personal destiny. Fenn's narratives typically emphasize plot development and characters' fortunes, making this book a useful sample of the popular fiction themes of the period. As a public-domain ebook, it is easy to search, carry, and reread, and it can be read alongside other works by the same author to observe his writing habits. Since the available material provides only bibliographic information, readers should not presume too much about the specific plot; it is better to enter the text with an open mind and attend to how the theme of identity is told. Overall, it is a work suited to leisure reading by literary enthusiasts and to researchers as a case study in popular fiction.

Who it's for

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Reading tips

  1. Skim the table of contents and chapter titles to grasp the overall structure.
  2. While reading, note how birth and identity shape characters' choices and relationships.
  3. Compare with other Victorian novels to observe how similar themes are handled.
  4. If the language is difficult, read a summary first and then return to the original to reduce pressure.

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.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12
  13. 13
  14. 14
  15. 15
  16. 16
  17. 17
  18. 18
  19. 19
  20. 20
  21. 21
  22. 22
  23. 23
  24. 24
  25. 25
  26. 26
  27. 27
  28. 28
  29. 29
  30. 30
  31. 31
  32. 32
  33. 33
  34. 34
  35. 35
  36. 36
  37. 37
  38. 38
  39. 39
  40. 40
  41. 41
  42. 42
  43. 43
  44. 44
  45. 45
  46. 46
  47. 47
  48. 48
  49. 49
  50. 50
  51. 51
  52. 52
  53. 53
  54. 54
  55. 55
  56. 56
  57. 57
  58. 58
  59. 59
  60. 60
  61. 61

FAQ

Is this book suitable for English beginners? Not very suitable. It is a nineteenth-century English original with period features in syntax and vocabulary. Some reading foundation is recommended, or use a dictionary and辅助 tools.
What does the title By Birth a Lady mean? Literally, it means becoming a lady by birth, suggesting the story may revolve around identity, birth, and class. The specific plot must be confirmed by reading the original; the title alone is not enough to infer everything.
How does this book relate to the author's other works? It is by the same author as Lady Maude's Mania, George Manville Fenn, and both are public-domain English novels in Project Gutenberg. Reading them together helps reveal shared tendencies in theme and narrative.

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About the author

Fenn, George Manville, 1831-1909 Author

George Manville Fenn (1831–1909) was a British author whose biographical details remain limited in publicly available sources. The library holds 127 of his works, including The Little Skipper: A Son of a Sailor, The Silver Canyon: A Tale of the Western Plains, and Sappers and Miners: The Flood beneath the Sea. Most center on youthful growth and adventure, often set at sea, in mining districts, or on the western plains. He also wrote such biographical work as George Alfred Henty: The Story of an Active Life. His writing emphasizes plot momentum and the shaping of character in young readers, and is commonly classified as inspirational coming-of-age fiction, holding a place in the tradition of juvenile adventure novels.