John Inglesant: A Romance

Project GutenbergProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 4.0
Word count
564K words
Chapters
57

Tags

English Originals Portrait GalleryFate and FortuneComplex HumanityReligious InquiryIntellectual EnlightenmentSpiritual GrowthMoral Dilemma17th Century England

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.John Inglesant: A Romance (Volume 2 of 2) by J. H. ShorthouseAuthor: ,Language: English, Class: PR: Language and Literatures: English literature, Release Date: Jan 4, 2014

Editor's review

This is the second of two volumes of John Inglesant: A Romance, taking up the characters' fates and intellectual threads from the previous volume and driving the narrative toward its conclusion. As a free Project Gutenberg eBook, its primary value lies in easy access to a long nineteenth-century English work that combines historical atmosphere with religious and philosophical reflection. The second volume focuses more sharply on the protagonist's struggles among faith, power, and conscience, with plot development interwoven with inner monologue, rewarding careful reading. It is best read together with the first volume, with attention to the author's staging of seventeenth-century English religious and political background and to the portrayal of the characters' spiritual dilemmas under the romance mode. For readers studying Victorian historical fiction and religious literature, this volume offers a text worth close reading; general readers, however, must adjust to its slow pace and dense cultural allusions.

Who it's for

A good fit for

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Reading tips

  1. Read the first volume before this one to avoid breaks in character relationships and plot threads.
  2. After each chapter, briefly review the characters' positions and the religious and political background.
  3. Look up allusions in notes or background materials when needed; do not force yourself to read quickly.
  4. Read alongside reference materials on Victorian historical fiction 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.

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

FAQ

Can this book be read as a standalone second volume? Not advisable. This volume is the latter half of a two-volume work, and its character relationships and plot directly continue from the first volume; reading it alone makes it easy to lose the groundwork of causes and character motivation. It is best to read the first volume first, then continue straight through this volume.
Is this a Chinese book or an English book? This is an English-language original eBook released by Project Gutenberg, a public-domain work of English literature. It contains no Chinese translation, so readers need corresponding English reading ability.
What background knowledge is needed to read this novel? Some knowledge of seventeenth-century English religious and political conflicts will help, since the novel involves conflicts of faith and historical atmosphere. It can be read without such background, but it is advisable to look up relevant historical and religious terms as you go.

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About the author

Project Gutenberg Author

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