Felix O'Day

Smith, Francis Hopkinson, 1838-1915Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.5

Word count: 510K words
Chapters: 51

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.Felix O'Day by Francis Hopkinson SmithAuthor: Smith, Francis Hopkinson, 1838-1915,Language: English, Class: PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature, Release Date: Mar 1, 2004

Editor's review

Felix O'Day is a novel by Francis Hopkinson Smith, available in the Project Gutenberg collection. Smith was an American author active in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and his works often portray human fates and social life with delicate strokes. The book centers on the protagonist Felix O'Day, using his experiences to reveal resilience and warmth in human nature. As a public-domain literary work, its value lies in giving readers free access to American literary expression around the Gilded Age and to the era's concern with individual striving and moral choice. Its characterization and plotting bear clear marks of their time, making it suitable as an entry point for readers interested in late 19th-century American literature. While reading, note how the author builds characters and conveys emotion through everyday scenes, and the social attitudes reflected in popular narrative. Since this is an English-language e-book, the main barrier is language rather than length.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Literature lovers interested in late 19th-century American fiction
English learners seeking free public-domain classics in the original
Researchers of Smith's work or American popular literature
Readers who enjoy character-driven narratives with a leisurely pace

Not a good fit for

Readers expecting fast pacing or strong dramatic conflict
Readers with limited English who need a Chinese translation
Those with very high demands on the typesetting and proofreading quality of public-domain e-books

Reading tips

Read the opening chapters first to grasp the character relationships, then proceed chapter by chapter without rushing.
When encountering unfamiliar words, first infer meaning from context and look them up together after finishing the chapter.
Reading alongside background material on late 19th-century American society helps clarify the era's logic behind characters' actions.
After finishing, revisit the protagonist's key choices and sort out the author's attitude toward human nature and fate.

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 text, released as an e-book by Project Gutenberg and labeled as English. Readers need some English reading ability; the available information mentions no Chinese translation.

What is Project Gutenberg?

Project Gutenberg is the earliest provider of free e-books, founded by Michael Hart in 1971, dedicated to digitizing public-domain books for free access. This book is one of its public-domain titles.

There's no translation—can an average English reader handle it?

This is a novel whose language carries period features and may include long sentences. Intermediate and above readers can work through it gradually with a dictionary; those with little experience reading originals should start with shorter chapters or use an annotated edition.

Comments

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About the author

Smith, Francis Hopkinson, 1838-1915 Author

Francis Hopkinson Smith (1838–1915) was an American author whose biographical details are only sparsely documented in public sources. The library holds twenty-six of his works, including novels and short stories, with representative titles such as Colonel Carter's Christmas, Forty Minutes Late, Felix O'Day, The Tides of Barnegat, and A Gentleman's Gentleman. These works show that he excelled at depicting, in a gentle and humorous vein, the daily life of upper-class English and American society and the Southern gentlemanly class, with plots often revolving around etiquette, family relations, and character, conveying both the warmth and the irony of an old-fashioned genteel world. His writings occupy a place in early twentieth-century American popular literature, and some of his stories were widely read.