Far to Seek

Maud Diver (born Katherine Helen Maud Marshall)Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.5
Word count
855K words
Chapters
86

Tags

English Originals Family FateLove EntanglementsIdentity ConstructionTravel NarrativeEast-West EncounterImperial EraExotic CultureColonial IndiaCross-Cultural ViewFemale Perspective

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.Far to Seek by Maud DiverAuthor: Diver, Maud, 1867-1945,Language: English, Class: PR: Language and Literatures: English literature, Release Date: Apr 25, 2005

Editor's review

Far to Seek is a novel by Maud Diver and a public-domain work of English literature. Diver's writing often takes British India as its setting and focuses on human relationships and identity in cross-cultural situations; this book follows that bent, balancing narrative with psychological portraiture and bearing clear marks of its era. As a public-domain electronic text, it is better suited to reading as English literature or as a sample for studying colonial-era fiction than to consumption as a contemporary bestseller. Readers can observe how an early twentieth-century English writer depicted everyday life, emotional choices, and cultural friction on the imperial periphery. When reading, note the period prejudices in narrative perspective and characters' speech, and understand them in the context of the time of writing; for course discussion, it can be read alongside English novels on Indian themes from the same period to develop critical questions.

Who it's for

A good fit for

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Reading tips

  1. Learn about the author's life and the British Indian background before starting the text.
  2. Make a brief character-relationship chart by chapter to avoid confusion over threads in a long read.
  3. Mark passages involving cultural difference and judgments of identity for discussion.
  4. Read alongside English novels on Indian themes from the same period and compare narrative stances.

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

FAQ

What kind of work is this book? It is a long English novel; the author, Maud Diver, often wrote stories of love and identity set in British India. The book is a public-domain literary text, not a historical monograph.
How difficult is the English? The language is early twentieth-century literary English, with syntax more complex than modern popular fiction, suitable for intermediate and advanced readers. Those with weaker foundations can read chapter summaries first before tackling the original.
What background is helpful for reading? Some knowledge of the social structure of British India and the daily life of the British in the colonial period helps. The period ideas and vocabulary in the book should be understood in historical context and not judged directly by contemporary standards.

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About the author

Maud Diver (born Katherine Helen Maud Marshall) Author · English · 1867–1945

Maud Diver (1867–1945), born Katherine Helen Maud Marshall, was a British woman writer born in Murree, British India. Her work centres on Indian subjects and the lives of Britons in India, spanning fiction, biography and journalism, and belongs stylistically to the then-popular genre of imperial romance. Her representative works include Captain Desmond, V.C., The Great Amulet and Far to Seek, of which three are held in this collection. Several of these titles reached bestseller lists and have since drawn renewed critical attention as important sources for the study of Anglo-Indian culture. Public information on her life and education is limited.