Joshua — Volume 4

Georg Moritz EbersProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.6

Word count: 116K 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.Joshua — Volume 4 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

Joshua — Volume 4 is the fourth volume of Georg Ebers's (1837–1898) long historical novel, released free in English as an ebook by Project Gutenberg. Ebers was a major representative of nineteenth-century German-language historical fiction, known for solid ancient-history settings and finely detailed scene-building. This volume continues the narrative built around the biblical figure Joshua and suits readers who want a literary approach to the ancient Near East's history and religious context. As a public-domain ebook, the text has no modern notes and only brief version information, so readers must fill in the historical background themselves. Being late in the sequence, Volume 4 carries forward characters and plot from the first three volumes; read alone it feels noticeably disjointed, and it is better suited to those who have read the earlier volumes and wish to finish the whole work. As an electronic text it is easy to search, excerpt, and compare, making it useful as supplementary material for courses on historical fiction or comparative literature rather than a first choice for beginners.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers who have finished the first three volumes and want to complete Ebers's historical novel
Literary readers interested in biblical historical fiction and ancient Near Eastern settings
Researchers who need a public-domain English electronic text for excerpts, comparison, or course materials
Readers used to nineteenth-century European long-form narrative who can accept a slow pace

Not a good fit for

Readers who have not read the first three volumes and want to start here; the plot continuity will be very rough
Beginners hoping for modern notes, an introduction, or historical commentary
Readers who prefer fast-paced, strongly plot-driven fiction; this book's narrative is leisurely

Reading tips

Read the first three volumes before this one, or at least skim their summaries to clarify characters and chronology.
Jot down character and place names as you read; comparing with the Book of Joshua in the Bible makes the text easier to follow.
Read the opening chapters first to confirm how they connect with the previous volumes, then decide whether to go back and fill in missed plot.
Use an e-reader's highlighting and search functions to find specific scenes and character passages later.

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 book be read on its own?

Not really. This is the fourth volume of a long novel, and both characters and plot build on the first three volumes; read alone, it confronts you at the start with a great deal of unexplained background, making it hard to follow. If you truly want only this volume, look up a summary of the whole work or synopses of the earlier volumes before starting the text.

Is this the English or the German version?

According to the information, this Project Gutenberg edition is in English—a public-domain English translation listed under Germanic literatures. Ebers wrote in German, so those who want the original must find a German edition; this ebook is for English-language readers.

Does the ebook have notes and an introduction?

The information shows this is a free Project Gutenberg electronic text with brief version details and no mention of modern notes, introduction, or historical commentary. When reading scenes set in antiquity, prepare your own biblical text or historical references to make up for the lack of background explanation.

Is it suitable as reference material for historical research?

It is better as a literary text than a historical source. Ebers's historical novels lay out period settings, but they are essentially literary creations with fictional characters and plot. It can be used to study how nineteenth-century historical fiction was written or received, but should not be cited directly as material on ancient history.

Comments

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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.