Eighteenth Century Vignettes

Henry Austin DobsonProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.7

Word count: 347K words
Chapters: 35

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. Eighteenth Century Vignettes by Austin Dobson. Author: Dobson, Austin, 1840-1921. Language: English. Class: PR: Language and Literatures: English literature. Release Date: Mar 13, 2015

Editor's review

Austin Dobson was a nineteenth-century English writer and biographical scholar. Eighteenth Century Vignettes sketches the people, manners, and literary life of eighteenth-century England in essay form, combining scholarship with informal conversation and a gentle vein of nostalgia. It does not aim at grand narrative but presents the details of the age in short chapters, making it a suitable introduction to eighteenth-century English society and culture. The English original is clear and of manageable length, readable in sections. Readers can enjoy the elegance of the essay form, or treat the book as a collection of leads on people and anecdotes for further reading as interest dictates.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers interested in eighteenth-century English literature and the history of manners
Those who enjoy essays, biographical anecdotes, and cultural sketches
English learners who want to practise reading through short original English texts

Not a good fit for

Serious researchers who need systematic period history or academic monographs
Readers who prefer plot-driven fiction or contemporary topics

Reading tips

Read by chapter, jumping to figures or themes you already know, then returning to the other sections.
Keep pen and paper to note the names and works mentioned, and after finishing choose one or two leads to look into further.
Read one or two pieces a day, treating the book as light cultural essays for bedtime or the commute.

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 a novel or a work of history?

It is not a novel but a cultural sketch of eighteenth-century English people and manners in essay form, combining literary interest with historical anecdote.

How difficult is the English?

It is nineteenth-century English prose with rather elegant syntax, but the chapters are short and self-contained, so readers with some grounding in English can read it in sections.

Do I need to read eighteenth-century history first?

Not necessarily. Each chapter stands relatively on its own, so you can start with the pieces that interest you; if you want to go deeper, look up the relevant figures and background afterwards.

Comments

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About the author

Henry Austin Dobson Author · British · 1840–1921

Henry Austin Dobson (1840–1921) was a British poet, essayist and biographer, born in Plymouth and long employed by the British Board of Trade. He devoted himself to reviving French classical verse forms in England, such as the triolet and the rondeau, and was an important figure in the Parnassian movement; his poems are metrically exact and refined in classical taste. Beyond poetry, he specialised in eighteenth-century English culture, writing biographies and critical studies of Horace Walpole, Fielding and Fanny Burney, as well as essay collections such as Eighteenth Century Vignettes and De Libris: Prose and Verse. His elegant prose vividly portrays people and period, and he did much to popularise eighteenth-century literature and social life. Six of his works are held in this collection.