The Cabman's Story

Doyle, Arthur Conan, 1859-1930Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.4

Word count: 17K words
Chapters: 2

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 Cabman's Story by Arthur Conan DoyleAuthor: Doyle, Arthur Conan, 1859-1930,Language: English, Class: PR: Language and Literatures: English literature, Release Date: Dec 26, 2005

Editor's review

This is a short story by Conan Doyle told through the voice of a cabman, reflecting the author's interest in street-level narration and suspense outside the Sherlock Holmes series. It is brief and in English, making it a light sample for understanding late nineteenth-century British short fiction. Its value lies not in an elaborate plot but in the shift of narrative perspective: an ordinary working man recounts his own experience, bringing out the accidents and adventures of city life. Readers interested in Conan Doyle's narrative technique can compare it with his detective fiction and observe how he uses an oral framework to create credibility and suspense. As a public-domain electronic text, it is plainly formatted and unannotated, so readers should bring their own background knowledge. It suits a single reading during a commute or before sleep, and also serves as introductory material for English short-story reading practice.

Who it's for

A good fit for

English learners who want to practice reading with a short original English text
Readers interested in Conan Doyle's non-detective works
Literature enthusiasts studying late-nineteenth-century British short-story narrative
Readers who want to finish a complete story in fragmented time

Not a good fit for

Readers expecting Holmes-style deduction and crime-solving
Beginner English readers who need detailed notes and a Chinese parallel text
Readers who prefer long, complex plots

Reading tips

Read through once to grasp the direction of the story, then go back to the details planted in the cabman's narration.
Keep pen and paper to note where the narrative perspective shifts, and consider how the oral frame affects credibility.
Read alongside other Conan Doyle short stories to compare how he handles suspense.
When you meet unfamiliar words, first guess from context and look them up together after finishing, so as to keep your reading rhythm.

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

Is this story part of the Sherlock Holmes series?

No. This is a short work by Conan Doyle outside the Sherlock Holmes series, narrated orally by a cabman. Neither Holmes nor Watson appears, and the style leans toward street-corner anecdote rather than detective reasoning.

How difficult is the English, and what level is it suitable for?

The original is late-nineteenth-century English with fairly long but not abstruse sentences and mostly everyday narrative vocabulary. Readers with roughly CET-4 reading ability can finish it with a dictionary; beginners are advised to use a Chinese translation or an annotated edition.

What are the features of this electronic edition, and what should readers note?

This is a public-domain electronic text from Project Gutenberg, plainly formatted, with no notes or introduction, and the main text is in English. Before reading, it helps to know something about the author and the period; look up cultural allusions yourself, and do not expect the layout of a printed book.

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Doyle, Arthur Conan, 1859-1930 Author

Arthur Conan Doyle (Doyle, Arthur Conan, 1859-1930) was a British writer best known for creating the detective Sherlock Holmes. The library records list his birth and death years and nationality as unknown, and public information is limited, so his biography is not speculated upon here. The collection contains 95 of his works, including The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, The Hound of the Baskervilles, and The Sign of the Four, along with different editions and multilingual translations. His writing is distinguished by rigorous logical deduction, vivid detective characters, and tight narrative pacing; he shaped and deeply influenced the modern detective fiction tradition, and Sherlock Holmes has become a classic figure in popular culture, still widely adapted and read today.