The Amateur

Davis, Richard Harding, 1864-1916Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.3

Word count: 44K words
Chapters: 5

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.The Amateur by Richard Harding DavisAuthor: Davis, Richard Harding, 1864-1916,Language: English, Class: PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature, Release Date: May 12, 2006

Editor's review

The Amateur is a novel by Richard Harding Davis, belonging to American literature and now offered as a free eBook by Project Gutenberg. Davis was an American journalist and writer of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and his works often carry a flavor of adventure and social observation. The word “amateur” in the title suggests that the protagonist may become involved in some situation in a non-professional capacity, and the narrative that unfolds tends to combine light readability with a gentle examination of human nature and social roles. For readers who wish to understand the character of popular literature in the United States around the Gilded Age, this work offers an accessible entry point of moderate length and fluent language. As a public-domain eBook, it is especially suitable for screen reading and convenient for literary scholars who wish to read it closely as a period text. Note that the book is in the original English and requires some English reading ability.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Literature enthusiasts interested in the character of American popular fiction in the late 19th century
English learners who wish to improve their reading through short or medium-length original English works
Readers interested in collecting public-domain eBooks from Project Gutenberg
Researchers studying Davis’s works or American adventure fiction

Not a good fit for

Readers who read only Chinese translations and are not used to original English texts
Readers expecting a long epic or a complex multi-stranded narrative
Beginner English readers who need detailed notes or a guide

Reading tips

Read through once to grasp the plot, then return to the title’s “amateur” and see how it echoes the characters’ actions.
Read the book alongside other works by Davis to observe the consistency of his narrative style.
When unfamiliar with the historical background, look up relevant historical materials as needed without interrupting the pace of reading.
Use the eBook’s search function to mark characters’ dialogue and appreciate how the author portrays personality.

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

How difficult is the English in this book?

The work was written in the late 19th to early 20th century. The language is generally fluent and sentence structures are not overly complex, though there are some period terms and colloquial expressions. Readers with reading ability around CET-4 can finish it with the help of a dictionary.

What is special about the Gutenberg edition?

Project Gutenberg offers free public-domain eBooks, with texts proofread by volunteers and easy to download and read offline. It does not include modern publishers’ introductions, notes, or afterwords, making it suitable for independent reading and for researchers who wish to use the original text directly.

Do I need to know the author’s biography before reading?

Not necessarily. The novel can be read on its own. If you become interested afterward, learning about Davis’s experience as a war correspondent and writer can help you understand the appeal of his narrative, which combines adventure and observation.

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About the author

Davis, Richard Harding, 1864-1916 Author

Richard Harding Davis (1864–1916) was an American writer and war correspondent, with 49 works held in this collection. Public information is limited, yet the range of his writing can be seen from the titles listed here: he wrote both war reportage and fiction and character sketches. Notes of a War Correspondent records a reporter's firsthand experiences in the field, Real Soldiers of Fortune tells of adventurous soldiers, while Gallegher and Other Stories and Van Bibber and Others show his skill in the short story, with a light touch and a gift for portraying city life and a variety of characters. His works are often classed as inspirational coming-of-age reading and have circulated among young readers, combining the immediacy of journalism with the readability of fiction; they have influenced later war reporting and popular narrative.