The Crofton Boys

Martineau, Harriet, 1802-1876Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.3

Word count: 295K words
Chapters: 30

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 Crofton Boys by Harriet MartineauAuthor: Martineau, Harriet, 1802-1876,Language: English, Class: PZ: Language and Literatures: Juvenile belles lettres, Release Date: Aug 26, 2007

Editor's review

The Crofton Boys is a school story for young readers by the Victorian English writer Harriet Martineau, an educational coming-of-age work in the public-domain canon. Its value lies not in convoluted or sensational plotting but in its delicate rendering of the everyday ethics of boarding-school life: friendship, rivalry, bullying and reconciliation among boys, and the intervention of teachers in shaping character. For today's readers it is a window onto nineteenth-century British middle-class ideas about education, and it invites reflection on how qualities such as honesty, courage and responsibility are narrated and passed on. The language is English, with sentence patterns bearing the marks of their era; it suits English learners as an entry point to public-domain originals, being moderate in length with clear chapters. It is best read as a historical text, attending to the recurrent moral admonitions and the way characters are judged, rather than demanding the pacing of modern children's literature.

Who it's for

A good fit for

English learners who want to practice reading with public-domain originals
Readers interested in Victorian education and school settings
People studying nineteenth-century children's literature and moral education texts
Parents who want to read with their children and discuss questions of character

Not a good fit for

Young readers who prefer fast-paced adventure or fantasy plots
People with weak English reading foundations who need modern annotations
Readers expecting the book to present diverse modern educational ideas

Reading tips

Read one chapter first to get a feel for the language's rhythm, then use a dictionary to read closely the passages with more unfamiliar words.
You can note the moral-evaluation language that recurs in the book as a clue to observing the ideas of the era.
If reading with children, discuss in a sentence or two after each chapter whether the characters' choices were appropriate.
There is no need to finish it in one go; reading chapter by chapter with brief notes makes it easier to keep going.

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 book suitable for English beginners to read directly?

Not very suitable for complete beginners. The sentence patterns carry nineteenth-century English features, and the vocabulary and expressions are distant from modern everyday English. It is recommended for learners with intermediate reading ability who are willing to look up words and adapt to old-fashioned syntax, or else for an annotated edition.

What kind of subject matter is this book?

It is a school and coming-of-age novel for young readers, centering on the daily life, relationships and character formation of boys at a boarding school, with a clear period flavor of moral education rather than adventure or fantasy.

Do I need to know the author's background to read this book?

You can understand the story without studying the author's life in advance. But knowing that Harriet Martineau long wrote on social and educational issues makes it easier to understand the many evaluative descriptions of teachers' lessons and companions' behavior in the book.

Is there anything to note about this edition?

This edition comes from Project Gutenberg and is a free public-domain e-book, with the text in English. E-editions usually contain no modern introduction or detailed annotations, so readers need to prepare a dictionary themselves and note that the e-layout may display differently across devices.

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About the author

Martineau, Harriet, 1802-1876 Author

Harriet Martineau (1802–1876) was a nineteenth-century British writer and thinker, and an important popular social commentator of the Victorian era. Her writing ranged widely across social observation, political economy, historical fiction, household education, and children's literature. The library holds 17 of her works, including the two-volume Society in America, Deerbrook, Feats on the Fiord, The Hour and the Man: An Historical Romance, How to Observe: Morals and Manners, Household Education, and The Crofton Boys. She was skilled at treating serious subjects in clear, readable prose, making abstract social and moral questions accessible and convincing; her observations of America and her social analysis have been especially valued by later readers. Public information is limited, so this note draws only on the library's holdings and reliable general knowledge, without adding biographical detail.