'Drag' Harlan

Charles Alden SeltzerProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

2.9

Word count: 381K words
Chapters: 39

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. 'Drag' Harlan by Charles Alden Seltzer. Author: Seltzer, Charles Alden, 1875-1942. Language: English. Class: PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature. Release Date: Jun 13, 2008

Editor's review

'Drag' Harlan is a Western novel by Charles Alden Seltzer and a highly representative frontier narrative in American popular literature. Seltzer excelled at creating rugged yet morally grounded Western characters, and the book moves at a brisk pace with tightly focused conflict and a strong period flavor. As a public-domain ebook, the text is complete and easily accessible, making it a good introductory sample for understanding early twentieth-century American Western genre fiction. While reading, note how the author builds character through dialogue and action, and how the Western landscape serves as a testing ground for morality. For readers studying the evolution of genre literature or the history of American popular culture, this novel offers a text that can be read alongside other Westerns; for general readers, it is a brisk, nostalgic adventure read. Bear in mind that the language and values carry the marks of their era, so a degree of historical distance is advisable.

Who it's for

A good fit for

General readers who enjoy Westerns and frontier adventure stories
Readers studying American popular literature and the evolution of genre fiction
English learners who want light reading in the original English to improve their language sense
Readers interested in early twentieth-century American mass culture

Not a good fit for

Readers expecting deep psychological portraiture or modern narrative techniques
Readers sensitive to the traditional gender and racial attitudes of the Western genre
Readers who need a Chinese translation or an extensively annotated edition

Reading tips

Read through the plot first and get a feel for the pace and conflict of Western genre fiction.
On a second pass, pay attention to dialogue and see how the author uses language to shape character.
Read it alongside other Westerns and compare character archetypes and depictions of space.
When reading the original English, skip unfamiliar dialect words at first to keep the reading flow.

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?

This is the original English edition, released by Project Gutenberg as a public-domain ebook. It suits readers with some English reading ability and can also serve as extensive reading material.

Can I read this if I have never read a Western?

Yes. The plot stands relatively on its own and does not depend on prior books. Readers new to the Western genre can treat it as an introductory sample and focus on the character conflict and frontier atmosphere.

Is this book suitable for literature students?

It is suitable as supplementary material for American popular literature and genre fiction. It is best read in the context of the Western genre's development, with attention to the work's period context; it should not be used on its own as a model of classic literature.

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About the author

Charles Alden Seltzer Author · American · 1875–1942

Charles Alden Seltzer (1875–1942) was an American writer of Western fiction, born in Janesville, Wisconsin, and died in Cleveland, Ohio. In his early years he drifted through various jobs and kept writing for more than a decade before getting published. Over his lifetime he wrote about forty Western novels and a large number of short stories. Set mostly on the Western frontier, his works are tightly plotted and action-driven; representative titles include The Two-Gun Man, The Trail to Yesterday, and The Range Boss, and several were adapted into films. The library holds ten of his works, commonly classified under inspirational growth. In his later years he served as mayor of North Olmsted, Ohio.