A Summer in the Orient

Warsberg, Alexander, Freiherr von, 1836-1889Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.2
Word count
877K words
Chapters
88

Tags

Foreign Language Books Travel Middle East EncountersNature and CultureTravel GuideObservation NotesOriental Journey19th CenturyEclectic ReadingExotic CultureCross-Cultural ViewLocal Customs

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. Ein Sommer im Orient by Freiherr von Alexander Warsberg. Author: Warsberg, Alexander, Freiherr von, 1836-1889. Language: German. Class: DS: History: General and Eastern Hemisphere: Asia. Release Date: Nov 20, 2017

Editor's review

This is a travelogue of the Orient written in German by Baron Alexander von Warsberg, classified under Asian history and general accounts. Project Gutenberg's electronic edition gives readers access to a first-hand nineteenth-century European account of the Orient. Its value lies in the traveler's immediacy: local customs, cityscapes, everyday people and incidents, and incidents on the journey are interwoven, presenting the Orient as seen by a nineteenth-century European. It can be enjoyed as travel literature for its observation and narrative, or read as historical source material, with attention to the author's perspective, prejudices and period limitations. The German original demands some linguistic competence, moves at a slow pace and varies in information density, so it suits reading in sections rather than straight through. For readers studying nineteenth-century travel writing, the history of East-West contact or German-language travel literature, it is a usable primary text; general readers can take it as a travel book with a sense of historical distance.

Who it's for

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Reading tips

  1. Begin with the table of contents and chapter titles, and read in sections by route or city of interest.
  2. Note the author's period prejudices as you read, using them as points for reflection in historical reading.
  3. Compare the travel impressions with other contemporary Oriental travelogues to develop a comparative perspective.
  4. If the German original proves difficult, use a dictionary first to work through the dense descriptive terms.

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
  62. 62
  63. 63
  64. 64
  65. 65
  66. 66
  67. 67
  68. 68
  69. 69
  70. 70
  71. 71
  72. 72
  73. 73
  74. 74
  75. 75
  76. 76
  77. 77
  78. 78
  79. 79
  80. 80
  81. 81
  82. 82
  83. 83
  84. 84
  85. 85
  86. 86
  87. 87
  88. 88

FAQ

What kind of work is this book? It is a nineteenth-century German travelogue of the Orient, recording the customs, cityscapes and travel experiences the author encountered along the way. It belongs to travel literature and historical account rather than fiction or a modern travel guide.
What language level is needed to read it? The original is in German, and an intermediate or higher reading ability in German is preferable. The book contains many descriptive terms and old-fashioned expressions, so a dictionary is recommended. Readers who only want the content may seek relevant translations or scholarly literature for support.
Is the content still reliable today? As a historical text, it reflects the observations and period perspective of a nineteenth-century European traveler, including personal prejudices and limitations. It should be read as historical material and travel writing, not as an objective modern geographical account.

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About the author

Warsberg, Alexander, Freiherr von, 1836-1889 Author

Warsberg, Alexander, Freiherr von (1836–1889) was a German-language author about whom little public information is available; the title "Freiherr" in his name indicates noble rank. Only one work can be confirmed, Ein Sommer im Orient (A Summer in the Orient), and it is the sole title held in the collection. Judging by its title, the book belongs to the literature of travel, centering on the author's summer experiences in the East and likely touching on local customs, landscapes and cultural observations along the way. Because no reliable record of his life, nationality or education has been found, a full account of his writing career is not possible; on the evidence of the surviving work, however, he continues the nineteenth-century German travel-writing tradition of drawing on personal journeys and emphasizing firsthand observation and individual impression, and may be of interest to readers studying travel writing and Orientalist imagination of that period.