Mrs. Dud's Sister

Bacon, Josephine Daskam, 1876-1961Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

2.8

Word count: 30K words
Chapters: 4

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.Mrs. Dud's Sister by Josephine Daskam BaconAuthor: Bacon, Josephine Daskam, 1876-1961,Language: English, Class: PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature, Release Date: Nov 6, 2007

Editor's review

This work comes from the American writer Josephine Daskam Bacon and belongs to a strand of the early twentieth-century American short story tradition. Bacon often handled family relations and women's circumstances with a light touch; this book unfolds around the figure of "Mrs. Dud's sister," and the title itself hints at the subtle tensions brought by kinship. Its value for reading lies not in strong plot turns but in close observation of everyday human relations: how a sister's entry changes a family's rhythm, and how the old order is renegotiated. The narrative tone usually carries gentle irony and sympathy, suited to being read piece by piece on a quiet afternoon, savoring the wit and the unsaid in the characters' dialogue. As a public-domain e-book, it also offers readers studying early twentieth-century American family narrative a convenient textual entry point. It should be noted that this is not a plot-driven work; readers should enter with a mind to appreciate language and character relations rather than expecting adventure or suspense.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers who enjoy early twentieth-century American short stories and are willing to savor everyday narrative.
Readers interested in family relations and women's circumstances who want to see a gentle ironic style.
Readers studying public-domain English literature who need a convenient electronic text as a reading sample.
Those accustomed to reading English who want short pieces for fragmented time.

Not a good fit for

Readers seeking strong plot conflict and suspenseful twists will find the pace slow.
Readers who need a Chinese translation or a bilingual edition; the original is an English text.
Readers hoping for detailed author biography and commentary; this book contains no introduction.

Reading tips

Read the first two chapters to become familiar with the narrative tone and character relations, then decide the reading pace.
After each piece, take a few minutes to recall the implications in the characters' dialogue; there is no need to rush on.
It can be read alongside early twentieth-century American short stories on family themes to compare narrative styles.
If English reading is difficult, look up key vocabulary first, then reread the dialogue-heavy passages.

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 a novel or a short story collection?

According to the materials, this is a work by Josephine Daskam Bacon, and the title points to the sister of a female character. The materials do not specify the structure of the contents; readers may first browse the table of contents or the opening to judge the format. Whether long or short, reading should focus on character relations and tone.

There is no Chinese translation; is the English hard to read?

The work belongs to early twentieth-century American literature, and its syntax and wording carry period features, but overall it is not an academic text. If you can usually read English short stories, you can get into it with a dictionary; for dialogue-heavy passages, read for the general sense first, then go back over the details.

Is it suitable for studying women's writing?

It can serve as a supplementary text. Bacon often wrote about family and women's daily lives, and this book unfolds around the kinship role of a sister, offering observational material on character relations and narrative attitude. However, the materials provide no author biography or commentary; in-depth study still requires finding background literature elsewhere.

Comments

Find this book

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Bacon, Josephine Daskam, 1876-1961 Author

Josephine Daskam Bacon (1876–1961) was an American writer whose life and creative background are only sparsely documented in publicly available sources. The library holds thirteen of her works, showing a considerable range of subjects across fiction, children's stories, and social narratives with a mysterious streak. Books such as In the Border Country and While Caroline Was Growing reveal her interest in childhood and growing up, while The Strange Cases of Dr. Stanchon displays psychological and suspenseful elements. The Courting of Lady Jane, A Philanthropist, and Julia The Apostate focus largely on marriage, social class, and women's circumstances, often with gentle irony and careful observation of character. Her style favors drama in everyday settings and uses dialogue to shape her figures. She was an active author in American popular literary circles from the late nineteenth to the early twentieth century, and her work retains value for rereading and study.