Lucretia — Volume 05

Lytton, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron, 1803-1873Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.2

Word count: 168K 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.Lucretia — Volume 05 by Baron Edward Bulwer Lytton LyttonAuthor: Lytton, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron, 1803-1873,Language: English, Class: PR: Language and Literatures: English literature, Release Date: Mar 1, 2005

Editor's review

As the final volume of the five-part Lucretia, this installment serves to resolve the novel's threads of fate, and is suited to readers who have already read the earlier volumes and wish to see the characters' outcomes and the thematic landing points. Bulwer-Lytton's narrative sustains tension between suspense and moral speculation, a style continued here, with a relatively concentrated presentation of the consequences of the characters' choices. As a public-domain electronic text provided by Project Gutenberg, the barrier to reading lies mainly in the language rather than access; the English original is suitable as extended reading material for Victorian fiction. It is best read as the closing chapter of the whole work rather than as a standalone story; if used for a course or reading group, discussion can focus on how the ending is handled and how the author portrays the darker side of human nature. Reading this volume alone loses much of the prior buildup and is of limited value.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers who have finished the first four volumes of Lucretia and want to see the ending
Students and researchers of Victorian English fiction
Fans of moral suspense and narratives of character fate
Advanced learners who need public-domain English texts for language practice

Not a good fit for

Readers who have not read the earlier volumes and want to start with this one
Readers seeking light entertainment and avoiding somber themes
Those who need a Chinese translation or annotated edition to read smoothly

Reading tips

Review the characters' situations at the end of Volume IV before starting this volume to avoid discontinuity.
Note the main characters' key choices as you read, to better grasp the causal logic of the ending.
If the English is difficult, proceed with chapter summaries rather than checking every word.
After finishing, revisit the opening of the whole book to compare the author's foreshadowing and echoes of the characters' fates.

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. This volume is the concluding part of a five-volume novel; the character relationships and conflicts are all built on the first four volumes, and reading it alone makes causes and consequences hard to understand. If you only want the gist of the story, read the book's overall synopsis or summaries of the earlier volumes first, then decide whether to proceed to this volume.

How difficult is the English in this book?

The original is a 19th-century English novel with long sentences and period-flavored vocabulary, making it advanced reading material. Readers with some experience of English fiction can proceed with the help of an electronic dictionary; beginners are better off choosing an annotated or translated edition, or reading a plot summary before attempting the original.

What are the features of the Project Gutenberg edition?

This edition is a free public-domain e-book, easy to obtain and suitable for reading on a computer or e-reader. The text is presented in the original English and usually contains no modern annotations or introduction, so readers must supply background knowledge themselves. The layout is mainly plain text, a plain reading experience, but convenient for searching and copying.

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About the author

Lytton, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron, 1803-1873 Author

Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron Lytton (1803–1873) was an English novelist, playwright and politician. The library holds 220 of his works, spanning a wide range of subjects: the historical novel The Last Days of Pompeii, set against the eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79; Rienzi, the Last of the Roman Tribunes, on the Roman tribune Cola di Rienzo; and Eugene Aram, a narrative drawn from a criminal case. He also wrote society novels such as Pelham, the family portrait The Caxtons, and the historical study Athens: Its Rise and Fall; the short tale The Haunted and the Haunters, or The House and the Brain reflects his interest in the supernatural. His style is ornate and his plots elaborate, combining romantic colouring with social satire. Public information is limited, and systematic Chinese-language appraisal of his life and work remains scarce.