Peter's Pence

William Wymark JacobsProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

2.9

Word count: 23K 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.Peter's Pence by W. W. JacobsAuthor: Jacobs, W. W. (William Wymark), 1863-1943,Language: English, Class: PR: Language and Literatures: English literature, Release Date: Jan 1, 2004

Editor's review

Peter's Pence is a short work by W. W. Jacobs, released as a free ebook by Project Gutenberg. Jacobs excels at depicting the schemes, misunderstandings, and comic predicaments of ordinary townspeople; the word Pence in the title suggests money or offering, and the story very likely revolves around a sum of money, a transaction, or some exchange of favors, with the author's characteristic gentle irony. As a public-domain text, its main barrier is language rather than length: the original English preserves period vocabulary, and the plot advances through dialogue and turns. It suits casual English reading, letting you observe in a short space how the author builds suspense, sets up misunderstandings, and resolves them at the end. Since the electronic edition has no accompanying notes, readers are advised to keep a dictionary at hand and watch for implications in the characters' speech. Overall it is a light English short story that can be read quickly, suitable for commuting or bedtime reading and for getting a feel for the tradition of English humorous short fiction.

Who it's for

A good fit for

English readers who enjoy humorous short stories of ordinary British life
Learners who want to practice extensive English reading with short texts
Readers interested in free public-domain ebook resources
General readers who need light reading for commutes or bedtime

Not a good fit for

Readers who prefer long narratives and complex character arcs
Young readers unwilling to adapt to period English expressions
Bilingual learners who need sentence-by-sentence notes and translations

Reading tips

Read the plot without worrying over details the first time, then go back to hints and misunderstandings in the dialogue.
Jot down unfamiliar period words, and look them up together after finishing the whole piece.
After reading, try to summarize the role of money in the story to check your grasp of the theme.
Read it back to back with other short stories by the same author and compare their common humorous techniques.

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 is Peter's Pence roughly about?

The available material provides only the author, language, and public-domain release information, with no detailed plot summary. Judging from the title and Jacobs's style, the story revolves around money or exchanges of favors, with humor and irony; the specific plot requires reading the text.

Is this suitable for English beginners?

The text is in the original English, with period vocabulary and sentence patterns, so beginners may find it hard going. Intermediate readers with a dictionary are better suited; beginners who want to try should first read a plot summary and then compare it with the original.

Why is there no more detailed content description?

This book comes from a public-domain electronic text on Project Gutenberg, and the available material includes only metadata such as author, language, category, and release date, with no plot summary. The recommendations rely only on this information and the author's publicly known writing traits, without inventing details about the book.

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About the author

William Wymark Jacobs Author · British · 1863–1943

William Wymark Jacobs (1863–1943) was a British short-story writer, born in London in 1863 and died there in 1943. In his early years he lived around the Thames docks and was familiar with the lives of sailors and dockworkers, which led him to write a great many humorous sea stories, often in a light and witty tone. His best-known work, The Monkey's Paw, is a classic horror short story included in The Lady of the Barge (1902); noted for its tight suspense and sudden twists, it is still widely anthologized in horror collections. The library holds 109 of his works, including The Lady of the Barge and Others, Ship's Company, A Tiger's Skin, Captains All, and Night Watches; his common category is inspirational growth. Public information is limited and details of his life are largely unavailable, yet his fiction is distinctive in subject, blending humor with horror, and has had a lasting influence on later short-story writing.