Homespun Tales

Wiggin, Kate Douglas Smith, 1856-1923Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.0

Word count: 408K words
Chapters: 41

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.Homespun Tales by Kate Douglas Smith WigginAuthor: Wiggin, Kate Douglas Smith, 1856-1923,Language: English, Class: PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature, Release Date: Oct 1, 2002

Editor's review

Homespun Tales is a collection of short stories by Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin; the word "homespun" in the title suggests a plain, homely narrative quality. The work depicts everyday life and human dealings in a gentle tone, emphasizing detail and the natural flow of feeling; it suits slow reading in quiet moments. As a public-domain ebook, this edition is released by Project Gutenberg and is easy to obtain, making it suitable light reading for readers who wish to encounter the American short-story tradition. It does not pursue strong dramatic conflict but excels in slices of life and human warmth, reading as intimate and soothing. While reading, note how the author conveys emotion through everyday scenes; it can also serve as practice text for English short reading, advancing piece by piece without rushing.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Ordinary readers who enjoy short stories and everyday subjects
Enthusiasts who want light reading in American literature
Learners who need short texts to practice English reading
Readers who prefer gentle narratives and slow bedtime reading

Not a good fit for

Readers seeking strong plots and suspenseful conflict
Readers who prefer long continuous narratives
Beginners unfamiliar with the period who are unwilling to look things up

Reading tips

Read in a scattered order by piece, pausing briefly after each before continuing.
Record everyday details that strike you and reflect on the author's narrative choices.
Choose one piece for close sentence-by-sentence reading to build English expression and language sense.

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 short-story collection?

It is a collection of short stories, each relatively independent and suited to reading in segments. Readers need not read straight through in order and may pick pieces of interest first.

Does the period setting affect comprehension?

The work carries the everyday atmosphere of its era, and some details may feel distant to contemporary readers, but the overall emotions and character relationships are not hard to understand. Look up background where unfamiliar.

Is it suitable for learning English?

It suits short reading practice, with relatively manageable length and mainly narrative language. Read each piece twice: first for the gist, second to accumulate vocabulary and sentence patterns.

Comments

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About the author

Wiggin, Kate Douglas Smith, 1856-1923 Author

Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin (1856–1923) was an American writer of children's literature. Because public information is limited, the details of her life are not elaborated here. The library holds 37 of her works, covering children's novels, holiday stories, and coming-of-age themes. Her best-known book, Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, features a lively and clever country girl, written in a bright, humorous style with close attention to character and everyday life. The Birds' Christmas Carol, Penelope's Progress, Timothy's Quest, New Chronicles of Rebecca, A Cathedral Courtship, and Mother Carey's Chickens likewise center on family, childhood, and warmth. Her writing is fresh and natural, often observing the world through a child's eyes, and her works had a certain influence on English-language children's literature of her time.