Old Hendrik's Tales

Vaughan, Arthur OwenProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.2

Word count: 214K words
Chapters: 22

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.Old Hendrik's Tales by Arthur Owen VaughanAuthor: Vaughan, Arthur Owen,Language: English, Class: GR: Geography, Anthropology, Recreation: Folklore, Release Date: Jun 20, 2010

Editor's review

Old Hendrik's Tales is a collection of folk tales gathered and arranged by Arthur Owen Vaughan, classified under folklore (GR) in Project Gutenberg. Its value lies not in polished literary craft but in preserving the raw texture of oral narrative: the stories are short, briskly paced, and carry the teller's voice and repetitive structures, making them a good sample for understanding the forms and traditions of folk narrative. For Chinese readers, the book's appeal is its plain English and short length, which make it a stepping stone for English reading, while the stories offer a view of a particular region's folk imagination, life experience and values. It suits casual dipping during commutes or before bed, and works as supplementary reading for folklore or comparative literature courses. Note that this is a public-domain e-book without modern notes or introduction, so readers must supply their own background; some stories' cultural assumptions are distant from today's views and should be read historically, not taken as authoritative ethnographic material.

Who it's for

A good fit for

General readers interested in folk tales and oral narrative traditions
English learners who want to practice reading with plain original texts
Students of folklore and comparative literature seeking supplementary reading
Readers who like short stories they can pick up and put down

Not a good fit for

Researchers expecting systematic scholarly notes and in-depth introductions
Novel readers who prefer long continuous plots and complex characterization
Readers who need a Chinese translation and are unused to reading English originals

Reading tips

Read one or two stories first to grasp the narrative voice and repetition, then go back for details.
Keep a notebook of recurring motifs and storytelling patterns for cross-comparison.
Skip unfamiliar cultural terms at first and look them up after finishing a story.
Use as bedtime or commute reading, one or two stories at a time, to avoid fatigue from reading straight through.

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?

The stories are short and the language relatively plain, making them a good transition for learners with some foundation. But the book contains dialectal expressions and regional cultural terms, so beginners may need a dictionary; start with the shortest stories and don't aim for word-for-word understanding.

Is this a complete collection or a selection?

This is a Project Gutenberg public-domain e-book containing folk tales arranged by Arthur Owen Vaughan. The specific contents follow the e-book text; readers can browse the table of contents first to see the range and length of what is included.

Do I need a background in folklore to read this?

No. The stories can be read on their own; background knowledge mainly helps with cultural context. For a deeper reading, note motifs and narrative patterns as you go and compare them with introductory folklore material.

The e-book has no notes—what should I do when I don't understand something?

First infer from context, then look up key terms after finishing the whole story. You can also consult Chinese translations of similar folk tales for reference on plot direction, but avoid judging the stories' older assumptions directly by modern standards.

Comments

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About the author

Vaughan, Arthur Owen Author

Vaughan, Arthur Owen is an author about whom relatively little public information is currently available; details such as his nationality, dates of birth and death, and educational background are not clearly recorded, and the library holds only one work by him. His known representative work is Old Hendrik's Tales, which, judging from its title and usual classification, is generally regarded as a narrative work drawing on folk tales or legends, carrying an oral-tradition flavor and local color. Because verifiable material is very scarce, it is difficult to give a complete picture of his writing career, and it cannot be confirmed whether he wrote other books or what profession he followed over the long term. On the available evidence, this work itself is the main route by which readers come to know the author; it has a certain recognizability among readers of related subjects and can serve as an entry point for understanding his narrative interests, while more detailed biographical and creative background remains to be discovered through further materials.