Picked Up Adrift

De Mille, James, 1833-1880Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.0

Word count: 408K words
Chapters: 41

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.Picked up Adrift by James De MilleAuthor: De Mille, James, 1833-1880,Language: English, Class: PZ: Language and Literatures: Juvenile belles lettres, Release Date: Dec 24, 2017

Editor's review

Picked up Adrift is by James De Mille, and Project Gutenberg classifies it as juvenile literature. De Mille excelled at adventure and sea stories, and this book carries the familiar elements of that vein: mishaps, drifting, and young people's resourcefulness. As a free electronic text, its notable value lies in easy access and its suitability as an entry-level read in the original English. The storytelling is strong and the chapters move briskly, so readers can follow the plot easily and finish an English reading practice before they know it. For young readers or adults hoping to rediscover the pleasure of reading, this kind of adventure narrative offers a low-threshold entry point. While reading, it is worth attending to the characters' choices and growth in adversity rather than only chasing the outcome of events; this brings out the work's educational import and period flavor more fully.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Young readers who enjoy sea adventures and stories of youthful growth
Learners looking for English-language original readers with brisk plots and moderate difficulty
Readers interested in the landscape of nineteenth-century juvenile literature
Teachers who need free electronic texts for class-wide reading

Not a good fit for

Adult readers who prefer complex psychological portraiture and contemporary narrative techniques
Beginners with weak English who need Chinese support to read
Readers expecting historical research or professional nautical knowledge

Reading tips

Proceed chapter by chapter, briefly noting changes in the characters' circumstances after each one.
Pay attention to the protagonist's judgments while adrift and in adversity, and discuss those choices with companions afterward.
Do not dwell on nautical terms; grasping the main plot is enough to keep reading smoothly.
Use it as morning or bedtime reading, one or two chapters at a time, to maintain continuity.

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 age is this book suitable for?

Project Gutenberg classifies it as juvenile literature; the story centers on adventure and young people's experiences, and the language difficulty is moderate. Whether it suits a particular reader also depends on their English level and reading interests.

Do I need nautical knowledge?

No. The story focuses on what the characters encounter and how they respond; the nautical setting is only the stage. A few terms do not affect understanding of the main thread, and readers can skip them or look them up later.

Why is there only an English edition?

Project Gutenberg provides public-domain English electronic texts. If you need a Chinese edition, you must look for a corresponding translation; the two are not the same version.

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About the author

De Mille, James, 1833-1880 Author

James De Mille (1833-1880) was a nineteenth-century novelist writing in English, though details of his life are scarce in publicly available sources and what is known rests largely on his works. Eighteen of his books are held here, spanning a wide range of genres: the utopian and adventurous fantasy of A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder, mystery and detective fiction such as The Cryptogram, Lost in the Fog and Cord and Creese, social novels including A Castle in Spain and The American Baron, and books for young readers like The B. O. W. C.: A Book For Boys and Fire in the Woods. His writing is marked by outlandish plots, puzzles and brisk pacing, with touches of satire and moral instruction, giving him a place in Victorian popular fiction and boys' adventure literature.