Mrs Peixada

Harland, Henry, 1861-1905Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

2.9

Word count: 411K words
Chapters: 42

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 Peixada by Henry HarlandAuthor: Harland, Henry, 1861-1905,Language: English, Class: PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature, Release Date: Aug 2, 2016

Editor's review

This work is a novel by Henry Harland, belonging to the vein of popular narrative within American literature. Harland was active in the late nineteenth century and was skilled at depicting New York urban life and the social manners of its circles in a light manner, and this book likewise revolves around marriage, family, and class sensibilities, reading with the flavor of a comedy of manners. Its value lies not in grand themes but in offering a window onto late nineteenth-century American urban middle-class life: dining tables, parlors, and neighborly exchanges form the narrative stage, with dense dialogue and brisk pacing. For readers who wish to understand American fiction in its transition from Romanticism to Realism, this is a light and enjoyable sample. It suits fragmented reading time such as commutes or before sleep, and also works as supplementary reading for English literature courses.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers who enjoy late nineteenth-century American urban novels of manners
English and American literature students using it as supplementary period reading
General English readers looking for public-domain fiction of moderate language difficulty
General readers interested in American social history and the history of family life

Not a good fit for

Readers who prefer strong plots, suspense, or fast-paced narratives
Readers seeking systematic literary history discussion or scholarly annotation
Readers with little interest in nineteenth-century social subjects

Reading tips

Read the opening chapters first to get familiar with the character relationships and narrative tone, then decide whether to read through or selectively.
Read alongside background material on late nineteenth-century American society, paying attention to dining table and parlor scenes.
Treat the dialogue as samples of colloquial English and take notes on interesting expressions.
If used for a course, discuss in groups along the three threads of family, marriage, and class.

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 suitable for English beginners?

Not very suitable for absolute beginners. The work was written in the late nineteenth century, and its sentence patterns and word choices bear the marks of the era, with colloquial and social formulas in the dialogue. It is more suitable for intermediate readers with some foundation in English reading who can handle unfamiliar words with a dictionary.

Is it a detective or suspense story?

No. Judging from the author Harland's usual writing style and the family subject suggested by the title, this is a novel of urban life and social manners, focusing on character relationships and everyday scenes rather than case deduction.

Do I need to know the author's biography before reading?

Not necessary. Read the main text first and get a feel for the narrative rhythm and character interactions; if you wish to go deeper, you can then look up the American literary background of the author's era as an aid to understanding the work, not as a prerequisite.

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About the author

Harland, Henry, 1861-1905 Author

Henry Harland (Harland, Henry, 1861-1905) was an English-language writer active in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Little is known in China about his life and nationality, and publicly available information is limited. The collection here holds eleven of his works, including My Friend Prospero, Mademoiselle Miss, and Other Stories, Comedies and Errors, The Cardinal's Snuff-Box, As It Was Written: A Jewish Musician's Story, The Royal End: A Romance, Grey Roses, and The Lady Paramount. Judging by these titles and genres, his writing spans novels and short stories, often centering on love, social circles, and mistaken identity, with a blend of light comedy and romantic romance, and occasionally touching on culturally charged subjects such as a Jewish musician. His prose favors plotted narration and dialogue, hovering between aesthetic refinement and social satire. He found readers in his day, though later criticism and research on him remain relatively limited.