People You Know

Ade, George, 1866-1944Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.6

Word count: 148K words
Chapters: 15

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. People You Know by George Ade. Author: Ade, George, 1866-1944. Language: English. Class: PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature. Release Date: Sep 27, 2004

Editor's review

George Ade (1866–1944) was an American journalist, playwright, and humorist known for his colloquial, slangy, vividly drawn short narratives. People You Know continues his vein of "character sketches," lightly sketching a cross-section of ordinary city people and revealing human nature and social manners through dialogue and detail, with a clear flavor of newspaper humor writing. This book was digitized by Project Gutenberg from an early edition and is a public-domain text, making it easy for readers to encounter a corner of early 20th-century American popular literature at low cost. Its value lies in its lively language and short pieces, which make it suitable for observing colloquial American English and social life of the period; its limitations are that the characters are types and the satire is relatively shallow, so it may not satisfy readers seeking depth. Read it as a set of character vignettes, dipping in at random and paying attention to slang and the rhythm of dialogue; if using it for language study, consult annotations and keep the historical context in mind rather than copying its colloquial expressions wholesale.

Who it's for

A good fit for

American literature and humorous sketch enthusiasts who want to understand early 20th-century popular writing
English learners who want exposure to colloquial narrative and character dialogue
Researchers of newspaper literature and short sketches, who can use it as a sample of the genre
Casual readers who enjoy light, short pieces for dipping into

Not a good fit for

Serious literature readers expecting deep social analysis or complex psychology
Beginners who need systematic literary history or detailed annotations
Readers unfamiliar with period slang and American colloquial speech, or with limited patience for reading

Reading tips

Read it sketch by sketch, two or three at a time, paying attention to dialogue and slang usage.
Keep an American English slang dictionary on hand to check period colloquialisms as you go.
Read it alongside contemporary American newspaper humor columns and compare how character sketches are written.
After reading, try summing up each character in one sentence to train sketch-like observation.

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 kind of work is this book?

It is a collection of short character sketches by George Ade, sketching ordinary city people in a humorous tone and revealing personality largely through dialogue and detail; it belongs to early 20th-century American newspaper popular literature.

How difficult is the English, and is it suitable for learning English?

The original is colloquial with fairly short sentences, but it contains a good deal of period slang and American expression. Intermediate and above learners can read it with a dictionary, focusing on the rhythm of dialogue; they should not directly imitate its slang.

Does this edition have annotations?

This is a public-domain electronic text released by Project Gutenberg and usually contains no detailed annotations or introduction. Readers need their own reference works or other annotated editions to aid understanding.

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About the author

Ade, George, 1866-1944 Author

George Ade (1866–1944) was an American writer known for humorous and satirical short pieces. His works include People You Know, Ade's Fables, More Fables, Fables in Slang, The Slim Princess, Knocking the Neighbors, and In Pastures New. He excelled at slang fables and urban sketches that portray the vanity and calculation of ordinary people, with playful language and brisk pacing, often using small characters' stories to reflect social manners. Fables in Slang, with its colloquial fables satirizing social life, is representative of his light but pointed style. Public information on his nationality, biographical details, and education is limited, so this note avoids speculation. The library holds eight of his works, indicating some presence of his humorous short fiction in Chinese-language book materials.