Tempest-Driven: A Romance

Dowling, Richard, 1846-1898Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

2.6

Word count: 188K words
Chapters: 19

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.Tempest-Driven: A Romance (Vol. 2 of 3) by Richard DowlingAuthor: Dowling, Richard, 1846-1898,Language: English, Class: PR: Language and Literatures: English literature, Release Date: May 20, 2013

Editor's review

Tempest-Driven: A Romance is the second volume of a novel by the Irish writer Richard Dowling (1846–1898), belonging to the Victorian tradition of melodramatic romance narrative. As a free Project Gutenberg electronic edition, its main value lies at the level of documentation and reading history: readers can observe the structure, suspense devices and character construction of mid-to-late nineteenth-century popular fiction, and feel the pacing of serialized novels. English literature students can use it as a sample of a minor Victorian author's work for discussing the tension between popular literature and the classic canon. Being a public-domain e-book, the text is free to obtain and suits close reading of excerpts or genre study, rather than ordinary readers seeking a modern narrative pace. When reading, it is advisable to keep the historical background in mind and note how the author drives the plot through emotion and coincidence.

Who it's for

A good fit for

English literature students studying Victorian popular fiction
Genre readers interested in nineteenth-century serialized romance narrative
Self-learners who need public-domain English texts for corpus work or close reading of excerpts
Research-oriented readers who collect Project Gutenberg public-domain books

Not a good fit for

Contemporary fiction readers who prefer a tight modern narrative pace
Beginners unaccustomed to nineteenth-century English syntax and length structure
Readers who want a complete story from one volume and do not wish to obtain the others

Reading tips

First understand that the novel has a three-volume structure, then decide whether to read it continuously, so as not to mistake this volume for a complete story.
As you read, note how suspense and coincidence are advanced, to help summarize the narrative conventions of Victorian popular fiction.
Read it alongside a classic novel of the same period to observe differences in character and plot between canonical and popular works.
If the English is difficult, read chapter summaries first and then go back to key passages, reducing the burden of long sentences.

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

Can this second volume be understood on its own?

This is the second volume of a three-volume novel; character relationships and plot threads continue from the previous volume, so reading it alone is likely to lack context. It is advisable at least to learn the main characters and events of volume one, or to plan reading the three volumes as a whole.

Is this book suitable for English beginners?

Not very. It is a nineteenth-century English novel with long sentences, slow narrative pacing, and period diction and melodramatic expression. The reading cost is high for beginners; it suits readers with some experience of long English fiction.

What are the features of the Project Gutenberg edition?

This edition is a free public-domain e-book provided by Project Gutenberg; the text is freely accessible and convenient for searching, excerpting and research reading. It offers no modern annotations or introduction, so readers need to supply background on the author and period themselves.

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About the author

Dowling, Richard, 1846-1898 Author

Richard Dowling (1846–1898) was an English-language novelist active in the late nineteenth century. Public information about him is limited, and reliable records of his life, nationality, and education are scarce. Sixteen of his works are held in the collection, most of them long romance novels with intricate plots. Representative titles include Miracle Gold: A Novel, the three-volume The Weird Sisters: A Romance, and The Last Call: A Romance. These works show that he excelled at advancing narrative through extraordinary incidents and emotional entanglements, with stories steeped in romantic legend, densely plotted and attentive to suspense and the turns of his characters' fortunes. In Chinese library classification his works are often placed under inspirational growth, perhaps because of the choices and transformations of characters facing adversity. Although biographical material about him is sparse, these novels offer a concrete sample of nineteenth-century popular romance fiction.