The Benefactress

Von Arnim, Elizabeth, 1866-1941Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.6
Word count
641K words
Chapters
65

Tags

English Originals Women's Fiction Social ObservationPortrait GalleryFate and FortuneLove EntanglementsComplex HumanityLife WisdomFemale Perspective

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 Benefactress by Elizabeth Von Arnim. Author: Von Arnim, Elizabeth, 1866-1941. Language: English. Class: PR: Language and Literatures: English literature. Release Date: Oct 20, 2009

Editor's review

The Benefactress is an English novel by Elizabeth von Arnim, part of the Project Gutenberg free eBook collection. Von Arnim was known for her delicate, humorous portrayal of women's circumstances and of marriage and family life, and this book continues in that vein, centering on a female benefactress and exploring the subtle tensions among goodwill, dependence, and self-identity. As a public-domain eBook, its text is freely available and suits readers of English literature or those studying women's writing. Readers are advised to attend to the narrator's restrained rendering of characters' psychology and to the social irony implied in the dialogue. Being an early English work, some expressions bear the marks of their time, which readers can understand from context. Overall, the book rewards slow, attentive reading rather than a fast, plot-driven approach.

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Reading tips

  1. Read one chapter first to get a feel for the language's rhythm, then decide whether to read closely or extensively.
  2. Mark period expressions lightly and review them together after finishing.
  3. Read alongside public-domain texts by the same author to appreciate her style.
  4. Take brief notes tracing character relationships to help follow the narrative.

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.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
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  13. 13
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  15. 15
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  18. 18
  19. 19
  20. 20
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  24. 24
  25. 25
  26. 26
  27. 27
  28. 28
  29. 29
  30. 30
  31. 31
  32. 32
  33. 33
  34. 34
  35. 35
  36. 36
  37. 37
  38. 38
  39. 39
  40. 40
  41. 41
  42. 42
  43. 43
  44. 44
  45. 45
  46. 46
  47. 47
  48. 48
  49. 49
  50. 50
  51. 51
  52. 52
  53. 53
  54. 54
  55. 55
  56. 56
  57. 57
  58. 58
  59. 59
  60. 60
  61. 61
  62. 62
  63. 63
  64. 64
  65. 65

FAQ

Is this book in Chinese or English? According to the information, this is an English eBook released by Project Gutenberg, in English, as a public-domain text, not a Chinese translation.
Can I understand it without notes? The text is generally readable, though some expressions carry period features. Readers with intermediate English can follow it from context and consult a dictionary when needed.
Is it suitable as English learning material? It can serve as extensive reading to familiarize yourself with narrative English. But it is not a graded reader and has no notes or exercises, so it is best used once you have some foundation.

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About the author

Von Arnim, Elizabeth, 1866-1941 Author

Elizabeth von Arnim (1866–1941) was a British-born writer who lived for much of her life in Europe. Drawing frequently on her own experiences, she wrote in a light, humorous style and was skilled at capturing subtle shifts of feeling within domestic life and travel. Her best-known novel, The Enchanted April, portrays several women whose moods are transformed during an Italian holiday, in prose that is bright and engaging; Elizabeth and Her German Garden uses garden life as its thread to display a delight in nature and a female perspective. Her works often centre on women and explore marriage, solitude, and self-discovery, with a gentle style that is nonetheless sharp. Public information is limited, yet her books are still read and regarded as a charming voice in early twentieth-century English women's literature.