Not a Creature Was Stirring

Dean EvansProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

2.2

Word count: 29K words
Chapters: 3

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.Not a Creature Was Stirring by Dean EvansAuthor: Evans, Dean,Language: English, Class: PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature, Release Date: Mar 8, 2016

Editor's review

Not a Creature Was Stirring is an English literary work in the Project Gutenberg collection, written by Dean Evans and classified under American and Canadian literature. As a public-domain ebook, its primary value lies in being freely accessible and easy to read across devices, making it a light supplementary text for English literature reading. In length and subject matter it has the flavor of popular narrative; readers can treat it as a sample of early twentieth-century English popular writing rather than a classic to be studied in depth. There is no need to pursue textual scholarship while reading; focus instead on the rhythm of the language, the dialogue, and the narrative drive, and you will gain a sense of reading achievement fairly quickly. If you are looking for free English original texts, want to use spare moments to keep up your feel for English, or are interested in the public-domain ebook ecosystem, this book is worth adding to your e-shelf. It is advisable to sample the first few pages to see whether the voice and subject suit your taste before deciding to read it through.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Learners looking for free English original texts to maintain English reading habits
General readers interested in early twentieth-century English popular literature
English teachers needing light English texts as classroom supplementary material
Readers accustomed to fragmented reading of public-domain books on electronic devices

Not a good fit for

Readers hoping for a Chinese translation or a bilingual edition
Researchers needing systematic literary-historical introductions and detailed annotations
Readers not interested in thriller or suspense subjects and preferring nonfiction

Reading tips

Read the first two chapters first to judge whether the language difficulty and narrative pace suit you.
Keep a vocabulary notebook and record only high-frequency words that recur, avoiding looking up every word.
Read for a fixed ten to fifteen minutes each day, using continuous reading instead of concentrated cramming.
After finishing, retell the plot in three to five sentences to check whether you have truly understood it.

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

What English level is needed to read this book?

It is a popular narrative English work, and a reading level of about CET-4 is enough to attempt it. Do not look up every new word; grasp the plot and the gist of the dialogue first. If the first few pages feel too difficult, set it aside for now and start with shorter English public-domain works.

What are the features of the Project Gutenberg edition?

Project Gutenberg is an early project providing free ebooks, and its editions are mainly public-domain texts that can be downloaded and read freely. This edition is in the original English and usually contains no Chinese annotations or introduction; the layout is mainly plain text, suitable for reading directly on a phone, tablet, or e-reader.

Is this book suitable for learning English?

It can be used as extensive reading material, focusing on reading fluency and language feel rather than intensive grammar study. It is best to focus on understanding the plot and record only a few high-frequency words. If your goal is exam preparation or systematic improvement in writing, you will also need textbooks and targeted exercises.

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About the author

Dean Evans Author · American · 1911–1963

Dean Evans (1911–1963) was a pen name used by an American writer of popular fiction, whose real name was George F. Krull. Public information about the man himself is limited, and his writing career was concentrated mainly in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Between 1948 and 1954, he published detective and science fiction short stories in popular magazines such as Black Mask and Galaxy Science Fiction, works that combine the tight pacing of genre fiction with a sense of the fantastic. His representative works include The Very Black, The Furious Rose, The Moons of Mars, and Not a Creature Was Stirring. His short stories generally revolve around suspense and science-fictional imagination, serving the reading tastes of the mass magazines popular at the time, and he was one of the many genre writers of that era.