Evan Harrington — Volume 5

Meredith, George, 1828-1909Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.5

Word count: 166K words
Chapters: 17

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.Evan Harrington — Volume 5 by George MeredithAuthor: Meredith, George, 1828-1909,Language: English, Class: PR: Language and Literatures: English literature, Release Date: Sep 1, 2003

Editor's review

Volume 5 of Evan Harrington comes in the later portion of this multi-volume novel, as the plot moves toward resolution and the character relationships and conflicts planted earlier develop more clearly. Meredith excels at depicting with irony the friction between social status, family respectability and personal choice; in this volume the turns in the characters' circumstances and the edge of their dialogue are crucial to understanding the book's themes. As a public-domain English e-text from Project Gutenberg, this volume is easy to search and cite, suitable for close reading and analysis by literary scholars and for readers who have finished the first four volumes and wish to continue. Note that the volume text lacks the notes and introduction of modern editions, so readers must supply their own knowledge of Victorian social background. Read without the earlier volumes, motivations and causal links will seem abrupt; reading the whole in order is recommended.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers who have finished the first four volumes and wish to continue the whole book
Scholars studying the structure and irony of Meredith's fiction
Teachers needing public-domain English texts for teaching or textual analysis
Readers interested in Victorian themes of family and identity

Not a good fit for

First-time readers who have not read the earlier volumes and want to start here
Readers who need a Chinese translation or modern notes for support
Casual readers who prefer self-contained, plot-complete works

Reading tips

Be sure to finish the first four volumes and clarify the character relationships before this one.
Focus on the conflict between personal choice and family respectability; keep thematic notes.
Compare with the book's ending to review the foreshadowing and turns set up in this volume.
Keep a dictionary at hand when reading the English original, and note the ironic rhetoric.

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 Volume 5 the final volume of the novel?

The available information does not confirm whether this is the final volume; it only identifies this as Volume 5 of Evan Harrington. Readers should consult the complete volume list or table of contents to confirm whether further volumes follow before planning their reading order.

Will it be hard to read without notes?

This edition is a public-domain e-text and generally contains no modern editorial notes. Meredith's ironic language and social-background description pose some difficulty for first-time readers; reading alongside Victorian social-history material, character-relationship notes and a dictionary can significantly lower the barrier.

Is it suitable for academic citation?

It can be used as a public-domain e-text for reading and preliminary research, but for academic citation you should verify wording and page numbers against an authoritative edition and note that the source text is the Project Gutenberg e-edition, to avoid inconsistencies caused by typesetting differences.

Comments

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About the author

Meredith, George, 1828-1909 Author

George Meredith (1828–1909) was a nineteenth-century British novelist and poet, whose works are represented here by as many as 111 titles, indicating that his writing has continued to circulate among readers and researchers. His representative work, The Ordeal of Richard Feverel, centers on a father-son relationship and examines the conflicts of pride and emotion in a young man's growth; The Egoist, subtitled “A Comedy in Narrative,” uses marriage and social situations to portray character weaknesses and self-reflection. His novels are often marked by witty dialogue, psychological insight, and an ironic tone, with plot and character relationships unfolding layer by layer. Public information is limited, and biographical details remain to be supplemented, but the existing bibliography shows that narrative novels and multi-volume series form the main body of his work, reflecting the Victorian novel's detailed exploration of individual morality and emotional life.