Delia Blanchflower

Ward, Humphry, Mrs., 1851-1920Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.3

Word count: 619K words
Chapters: 62

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.Delia Blanchflower by Mrs. Humphry WardAuthor: Ward, Humphry, Mrs., 1851-1920,Language: English, Class: PR: Language and Literatures: English literature, Release Date: Jan 1, 2006

Editor's review

Delia Blanchflower is a work by the British novelist Mrs. Humphry Ward, belonging to the tradition of social fiction from the late Victorian to the Edwardian era. Mrs. Ward was an extremely popular and influential writer of her time; her novels often weave together women's circumstances, class responsibility, and religious and moral controversies, with solid plotting and dense dialogue, bearing a distinct flavor of contemporary debate. Through the life experiences of the protagonist Delia Blanchflower, the book presents the tension between individual will and the expectations of family and society. For readers studying late 19th-century British women's writing and shifting social attitudes, it is a practical text for understanding the character of popular serious fiction of the period; for general readers, it is a work in which one can observe the rhythms of old-fashioned narrative and character portrayal, requiring some patience. This English electronic edition provided by Project Gutenberg is suitable as material for reading public-domain literature and for language learning.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Literary readers interested in late Victorian to Edwardian British fiction
Students and scholars studying late 19th-century women's writing and changing social attitudes
Learners hoping to improve their extended English reading through original public-domain novels
Readers who prefer traditional realistic fiction with dense dialogue and strong social themes

Not a good fit for

Readers seeking fast pacing, strong suspense, or modern narrative techniques
Readers unaccustomed to reading long English originals and dependent on Chinese translations
Readers with little interest in religious and moral debate or period background

Reading tips

Learn about Mrs. Ward and her era first, then enter the text, to grasp the issues more easily.
Read one or two chapters at a fixed time each day, taking notes on character relationships and key dialogue.
Skip period expressions and allusions at first and revisit them after finishing a chapter to reduce pauses.
If using it for English study, read dialogue passages closely and retell the main plot points.

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?

According to the information, the book's language is English; it is the English e-book edition released by Project Gutenberg, not a Chinese translation, so some English reading ability is needed.

What type of work is this book?

Judging from Mrs. Ward's body of work and the British literature classification noted in the information, it is a British social realist novel of the late 19th to early 20th century, focusing on human circumstances, moral issues, and social attitudes rather than adventure or detective fiction.

Can I read it without relevant background knowledge?

Yes, but it is advisable to first learn about the social and religious atmosphere of late Victorian Britain. The book contains much debate and dialogue, and without background it may feel slow; a brief period introduction will make reading smoother.

What should I note when using the electronic edition?

This is a public-domain electronic text, mainly in plain text layout, and may lack modern annotations. It is recommended to use reading software with adjustable font size and a dictionary, and to mark character relationships yourself for continuous reading.

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

Ward, Humphry, Mrs., 1851-1920 Author

Mrs. Humphry Ward (1851–1920) was a British novelist of the late Victorian era, born Mary Augusta Arnold and known after marriage by her husband's surname. Her fiction often centres on conflicts between religious belief and moral conviction, while also touching on social reform, women's circumstances and family ethics. Her style is realistic, with finely drawn psychological portraits, and her work reached a wide readership in the English-speaking world of her day. The novel Robert Elsmere, her best-known work, stirred public debate by addressing a crisis of faith, while Marcella, The History of David Grieve and The Marriage of William Ashe likewise explore personal conviction and social responsibility. Thirty-three of her works are held in this collection. Public information is limited, so details of her life and career are not elaborated here.