Condensed Novels

Harte, Bret, 1836-1902Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.5

Word count: 6.4K words
Chapters: 1

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.Condensed Novels by Bret HarteAuthor: Harte, Bret, 1836-1902,Language: English, Class: PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature, Release Date: Aug 1, 2000

Editor's review

Condensed Novels is a collection of short parodies by Bret Harte that condenses, exaggerates, and pokes fun at the narrative formulas of popular novelists of his day. Its value lies less in telling complete stories than in letting readers see how the plot formulas and stylistic mannerisms of nineteenth-century popular fiction are taken apart and reassembled, with a humor that anticipates metafiction. Harte, long a writer of Western subjects, brings a light irony and exaggerated turns to these pieces, and the book serves as an accessible entry into American humorous literature and the parody tradition. There is no need to read for plot continuity; it works best as a set of stylistic games: read a summary of the original being parodied, then compare Harte's compression and distortion, and the jokes become clearer. The electronic edition is easy to search and compare, suited to reading one piece at a time on a commute or a short break, and to literature classes discussing parody and intertextuality.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers who enjoy nineteenth-century British and American literature and want to understand parody
Literature teachers and students who need short texts for classroom discussion
General readers interested in humorous literature and stylistic experiment
Advanced English learners who want to read original English texts in fragments of time

Not a good fit for

Traditional fiction readers expecting full plots and character arcs
Beginners unfamiliar with nineteenth-century fiction who may miss the jokes
Those who need a systematic literary history textbook rather than primary readings

Reading tips

Read a summary of the original by the parodied author first, then compare it with Harte's condensed version to appreciate the exaggeration.
Read only one or two pieces at a time and note in the margins the narrative formulas being mocked; there is no need to read straight through.
Read alongside selections from nineteenth-century popular fiction, treating the book as a casebook of parody and intertextuality.

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 a complete novel?

No. It is a collection of independent short parodies, each condensing and rewriting the plot and style of a popular novel of the time; the pieces are short and not continuous. It is suited to reading piece by piece rather than following one long story from beginning to end.

What if I don't get the jokes?

The humor of parody depends on familiarity with the originals. Look up the writers and works alluded to in each piece and get a sense of their common formulas, then return to see how Harte compresses, exaggerates, and ironizes; the jokes will become much clearer.

How difficult is the English, and is it suitable for language learning?

The text is nineteenth-century English, with long sentences and period vocabulary, so it is not for beginners. Readers with some English foundation who are willing to look up words can use it as advanced reading material, focusing on style and ironic tone.

Comments

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About the author

Harte, Bret, 1836-1902 Author

Bret Harte (1836-1902) was an American writer best known for his stories of life during the California Gold Rush. He portrayed the varied characters of mining towns with a style that blends humor, sentiment, and realism, often using unexpected turns to reveal both the warmth and the absurdity of human nature. The collection here includes sixty-three of his works, among them The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales, Tennessee's Partner, Frontier Stories, Selected Stories of Bret Harte, East and West: Poems, Salomy Jane, and the Complete Poetical Works, covering both short fiction and poetry. These works draw largely on the everyday life and legends of the western frontier and have influenced later American Western literature. Public information on his life and education is limited, so no conjecture is offered here.