Jacqueline — Volume 2

Thérèse Bentzon (Marie-Thérèse Blanc, née de Solms)Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

2.7

Word count: 169K 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.Jacqueline — Volume 2 by Th. BentzonAuthor: Bentzon, Th., 1840-1907,Language: English, Class: PQ: Language and Literatures: Romance literatures: French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Release Date: Apr 1, 2003

Editor's review

Jacqueline — Volume 2 sits in the middle of the series, carrying the work of unfolding conflict and deepening character relationships. In this volume, Th. Bentzon continues, in restrained prose, to depict a woman's wavering between emotion and social expectation; the plot advances not through dramatic events but through dialogue and psychological detail that accumulate tension. The Project Gutenberg edition is a public-domain English electronic text, simply typeset and without modern annotations, suited to readers familiar with the pace of nineteenth-century fiction who wish to read chapter by chapter. It can stand alone, but character motivation is closely tied to earlier events, so reading it in sequence with Volume 1 is advisable. Its value lies in showing how a female character repeatedly weighs compromise against self-assertion; for readers interested in the European tradition of women's literature, or curious about the shape of Project Gutenberg's public-domain catalogue, it is a plain but rewarding text.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Series readers who have read Volume 1 and wish to follow the characters' development
Readers interested in nineteenth-century European writing on women's emotions and circumstances
Literary enthusiasts accustomed to close chapter-by-chapter reading who appreciate psychological description
Learners needing a public-domain English text as material for translation or textual analysis

Not a good fit for

Readers hoping to start directly from the middle of the series without reading Volume 1
Readers of popular fiction who prefer tight plotting and a clear resolution
Beginners who need detailed historical and contextual annotations

Reading tips

Review the characters' situation at the end of Volume 1 before beginning this volume for a smoother transition.
Read chapter by chapter and attend to subtext in dialogue; much of this volume's tension lies in what is left unsaid.
Keep a simple character-relationship chart and update it as you read to avoid confusion over mid-series threads.
Pause after finishing and write down your understanding of the characters' choices before moving on to Volume 3 for comparison.

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

Must Volumes 2 and 3 be read in order?

Reading in order is recommended. Volume 2 sits in the middle of the series, and character motivation is closely tied to earlier events; skipping ahead may lose key groundwork. If time is limited, at least learn the main characters and events of Volume 1 first.

Is the text in English or French?

This Project Gutenberg edition is an English text, a public-domain e-book. If you need to compare it with the French original, you must find a French edition separately, and note differences between translations as you read.

Is the book strongly plot-driven?

The plot advances in a restrained way, relying mainly on dialogue and psychological detail to build tension rather than on dramatic events. It suits readers willing to read slowly and follow inner changes in the characters, not those seeking a heavily plotted read.

Comments

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About the author

Thérèse Bentzon (Marie-Thérèse Blanc, née de Solms) Author · French · 1840–1907

Thérèse Bentzon (1840–1907), born Marie-Thérèse Blanc and known by the pen name "Thérèse Bentzon," was a French novelist, journalist and translator. A longtime contributor to the Revue des Deux Mondes, she focused on women's circumstances and social issues, and received several awards from the Académie française. Her representative works include Jacqueline and The American Woman. Five of her works are held in this collection, all belonging to Jacqueline and its related sections. Public information is limited and details of her life are largely unavailable, but her surviving works show a delicate touch and a keen sense of women's situations under family and social pressure, combining a novelist's narrative gift with a journalist's observation; this engagement with real social questions gives her writing a degree of representative significance within late nineteenth-century French women's writing.