The Wild Horse

Reid, Mayne, 1818-1883Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.0

Word count: 105K words
Chapters: 11

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.Le cheval sauvage by Mayne ReidAuthor: Reid, Mayne, 1818-1883,Language: French, Class: PZ: Language and Literatures: Juvenile belles lettres, Release Date: Jun 21, 2009

Editor's review

Le cheval sauvage is a boys' adventure novel by Mayne Reid published in French; the Project Gutenberg electronic edition keeps this nineteenth-century tale of animals and the wilderness in free circulation. Reid's pacing is brisk, and he often blends natural observation, the perils of travel, and a boy's coming-of-age. The plot centered on a wild horse gives the book an exotic coloring while preserving the straightforward pleasure of adventure writing of its era. For Chinese readers, it works better as French reading material or as a light text for comparative literature and children's literature research than as a modern novel of deep psychological portrayal. The electronic edition has no illustrations or notes, so it is best read alongside a French dictionary or a bilingual edition, as a sample of nineteenth-century popular adventure narrative and a way to see how early juvenile reading matter used animal stories to convey courage and curiosity.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers with basic French who want to practice reading original texts through a short adventure story
General readers interested in nineteenth-century boys' adventure literature and animal themes
Researchers in children's or comparative literature who need samples of early popular texts

Not a good fit for

Readers with no French who want to read a Chinese translation directly
Readers who prefer modern slow-paced literature or complex psychological portrayal

Reading tips

Read through once for the plot, then a second time looking up vocabulary and French expressions
Read with the context of nineteenth-century adventure literature in mind, noting how the human-nature relationship is written
Close-read the passages where the wild horse appears and the chase scenes to appreciate Reid's scene-setting

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 in Chinese or French?

The text is in French, released as an electronic edition by Project Gutenberg. Chinese readers without French face a high threshold; those with basic French can use it as a short original-language reader.

Is it suitable for children to read directly?

The subject matter is a boys' adventure story, but the original is nineteenth-century French, and its vocabulary and syntax are not easy for today's children. It is better read with an adult, in selected passages with explanation, or used as French learning material rather than as an independent read for young children.

Does the electronic edition have notes or illustrations?

Project Gutenberg provides a public-domain electronic text, and the materials do not indicate that notes or illustrations are included. When encountering historical background or unfamiliar expressions, readers need to consult a dictionary or related background materials themselves.

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About the author

Reid, Mayne, 1818-1883 Author

Mayne Reid (1818–1883) was a prolific nineteenth-century writer of English-language adventure fiction. Details of his life are limited in publicly available sources; what is relatively reliable is that he was born in 1818 and died in 1883. The library holds 57 of his works, commonly classified as inspirational coming-of-age stories, which shows that his writing centered on adventure and growth for young readers. Representative works include The Headless Horseman: A Strange Tale of Texas, set on the Texas frontier, along with Ran Away to Sea, The Forest Exiles, The Desert Home, The Maroon, The Quadroon, and The Land of Fire, which carry readers to the Amazon jungle, the wilderness, the sea, and the Far West. His novels feature tight plots and wide-open settings, often depicting separated families, survival in foreign lands, and youthful adventure; they were widely read in the English-speaking world and have had some influence on later adventure literature.