Homo Sum — Volume 02

Georg Moritz EbersProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

2.9

Word count: 110K words
Chapters: 12

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.Homo Sum — Volume 02 by Georg EbersAuthor: Ebers, Georg, 1837-1898,Language: English, Class: PT: Language and Literatures: Germanic, Scandinavian, and Icelandic literatures, Release Date: Apr 1, 2004

Editor's review

Homo Sum — Volume 02 is the second volume of Georg Ebers's historical novel of the same title, released free of charge by Project Gutenberg. An Egyptologist as well as a novelist, Ebers was skilled at holding ancient monastic life, the desert setting, and his characters' inner conflicts in a single frame; this volume continues the book's inquiry into faith, asceticism, and human nature. "Homo sum" itself means "I am a human being," and the title already signals that the work is concerned with universal humanity rather than exotic spectacle. As a volume of a larger work, it is not suited to being read on its own: the plot and character relationships depend on what precedes them. The electronic edition is easy to search and revisit, however, and reading it alongside Volume 01 makes the threads easier to follow. The language is a nineteenth-century English translation style, with long sentences and a slow pace. It suits patient readers interested in early Christian monasticism and the late classical setting, or those who want a textual sample for studying Ebers's narrative technique—not readers looking for light popular fiction.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Series readers who have finished Volume 01 and want to follow the characters' fortunes
Readers interested in historical fiction about early monastic life and faith
Readers willing to read a long nineteenth-century English novel slowly as reading practice
Literature enthusiasts studying the structure and themes of Ebers's work

Not a good fit for

Readers who have not read Volume 01 and want to start here
Those who prefer fast-paced modern narrative and short reads
General readers expecting a Chinese translation or an easy popular story
Researchers who need systematic historical sources rather than fictionalized depiction

Reading tips

Be sure to read Volume 01 first and sort out the characters and main conflicts before starting this volume
Review the final chapters of Volume 01 before reading to pick up the plot and character motivations
For monastic and faith themes, note keywords as you read to help organize the themes
Use the electronic edition's search function for character names to locate cross-volume threads quickly

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

Can this volume be read on its own?

Not recommended. It is the second volume of a long novel, and its character relationships and plot carry over from Volume 01, so reading it alone makes the context easy to lose. It is best to begin with Volume 01 in order, or at least learn the previous volume's outline before starting this one.

What does the title Homo Sum mean?

It is Latin for "I am a human being," often associated with the classical expression "nothing human is alien to me." The title indicates that the work concerns universal humanity and conflicts of faith, not merely an exotic tale of antiquity.

How does this differ from the same author's The Emperor?

Both are historical novels by Ebers, but their subjects and settings differ: The Emperor is set in the era of the Roman emperors, while this book centers on monastic and faith life. They can be read as a contrast between different subjects by the same author, but the stories are independent of each other.

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About the author

Georg Moritz Ebers Author · German · 1837–1898

Georg Ebers (1837–1898) was a German Egyptologist and novelist. Born in Berlin in 1837, he served as a professor at the University of Leipzig. His major contribution to Egyptology was the discovery, editing, and publication of the famous Ebers Papyrus, which provided valuable material for the study of ancient medical texts. At the same time, he devoted himself to spreading Egyptological knowledge through literature, writing historical novels such as An Egyptian Princess and Uarda. These works weave the social life and historical settings of ancient Egypt into their narratives, making specialized scholarship more accessible to general readers. His works number 172 in the library's collection, including the serialized volumes of An Egyptian Princess and Cleopatra, which shows how widely his historical novels circulated. Overall, Ebers combined scholarly rigor with a novelist's gift for popular expression, occupying a distinctive place in the popularization of Egyptology in the nineteenth century.