Paul Patoff

Crawford, F. Marion (Francis Marion), 1854-1909Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.2

Word count: 855K words
Chapters: 86

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.Paul Patoff by F. Marion CrawfordAuthor: Crawford, F. Marion (Francis Marion), 1854-1909,Language: English, Class: PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature, Release Date: Oct 3, 2007

Editor's review

This is a novel by F. Marion Crawford, an Anglo-American author active in the late nineteenth century who produced a substantial and varied body of work. The book falls under American and Canadian literature, and this electronic edition was prepared and released by Project Gutenberg as a free public-domain resource. Judging from the available information, the title is taken from a character's name, consistent with Crawford's habitual approach of driving narrative through the fate of his characters; readers can expect fairly full character development and an elaborately constructed plot. As a nineteenth-century novel, it moves at a slow pace and describes in fine detail, suiting readers willing to sink into an old-fashioned long narrative. Its value lies in offering a sample of late nineteenth-century English popular fiction: the character relationships, social settings, and manner of plot progression all bear the marks of their era. As the available information provides no specific plot or reviews, readers are advised to approach it as an exploration of public-domain literature rather than with fixed expectations. It suits reading in installments over an extended period, and may also serve as supplementary material for studying Crawford's work or nineteenth-century popular fiction.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers who enjoy nineteenth-century English novels
Students and teachers studying Crawford's work or popular literature
Readers who need the original English text in the public domain
Seasoned readers with the patience for slow-paced narrative

Not a good fit for

Readers of contemporary fiction who prefer fast pacing and strong plot
Learners who need a Chinese translation or annotated edition
Readers with fragmented reading time who struggle to finish long novels

Reading tips

Read the opening chapters first to gauge the narrative style and character relationships, then decide your reading pace.
Keep notes on character relationships as you read to avoid confusing roles over a long book.
Read it alongside other nineteenth-century English novels to appreciate the period's writing characteristics.
Read chapter by chapter, briefly reviewing the plot after each session.

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 the original English edition or a Chinese translation?

Project Gutenberg provides the original English e-book as a free public-domain resource; it generally contains no Chinese translation or annotations. Chinese readers will need some English reading ability, or a dictionary and other aids.

What kind of writer was Crawford?

F. Marion Crawford was a writer of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Born in Italy and long resident in Europe, he wrote a great many novels in English, ranging across historical, social, and supernatural subjects, and his works were numerous and widely circulated.

What background should I know before reading this book?

The available information provides no specific plot or historical background, so readers can begin directly with the text. For deeper understanding, learning about common narrative methods and the social background of late nineteenth-century English fiction beforehand can help in understanding characters' behavior and scene descriptions.

Comments

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About the author

Crawford, F. Marion (Francis Marion), 1854-1909 Author

F. Marion Crawford (Francis Marion Crawford, 1854–1909) was a notably prolific English-language novelist. The library holds 46 of his works, spanning a wide range of subjects: long novels set in Italy, such as Saracinesca, Greifenstein and Fair Margaret: A Portrait; the two-volume Ave Roma Immortalis, which portrays the history and monuments of Rome; the Arabian tale Khaled, A Tale of Arabia; and atmospheric ghost stories including The Upper Berth and Wandering Ghosts. These works show a writer skilled at evoking foreign and historical settings, with clear narrative structure and steady plotting, accomplished both in popular long fiction and in tales of the strange. His supernatural stories in particular have been favored by later anthologies and have had some influence on the English ghost-story tradition. Because public information is limited, biographical details are not elaborated here; the outline above rests on the works in the library's holdings.