The Emancipated cover

The Emancipated

Rating 3.3
Word count
804K words
Chapters
81

Tags

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 Emancipated by George GissingAuthor: Gissing, George, 1857-1903,Language: English, Class: PR: Language and Literatures: English literature, Release Date: Aug 1, 2003

Editor's review

The Emancipated is one of George Gissing's early novels. It revolves around a group of middle-class English people living abroad in Italy, and through their emotional entanglements and clashes of ideas discusses marriage, freedom, and self-realization. The "emancipation" of the title is not a single political slogan but something located in personal choice and ethical circumstance: the characters try to escape social custom and family expectation, yet often must pay a price between ideal and duty. Gissing's narration is cool and restrained, with meticulous attention to psychology and social scenes; it reads with the scope of a Victorian novel while also examining traditional moral assumptions. As a public-domain ebook, this edition is provided by Project Gutenberg in the original English, and is suitable as supplementary reading for understanding Gissing's development or for studying late nineteenth-century English fiction and social ideas. There is no need to rush after plot; noting the differences of opinion in the characters' dialogue will better convey the work's underlying concerns.

Who it's for

A good fit for

  • Readers who enjoy Victorian English novels
  • Readers interested in marriage, freedom, and personal choice
  • Readers studying Gissing or late nineteenth-century English literature
  • Readers who wish to encounter public-domain classics in the original English

Not a good fit for

  • Readers who prefer fast-paced, strongly plotted narratives
  • Readers with limited English reading experience who need Chinese annotations
  • Readers expecting explicit, conclusion-style moral lessons

Reading tips

  1. Read the opening chapters first to sort out the characters and the expatriate setting, then move into the conflicts of ideas.
  2. Jot down the characters' differing attitudes toward marriage and freedom as you read, to aid comparison.
  3. Read alongside other works by Gissing to observe continuities and changes in his concerns.
  4. For the English original, read in segments and review key dialogue after each chapter.

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
  12. 12
  13. 13
  14. 14
  15. 15
  16. 16
  17. 17
  18. 18
  19. 19
  20. 20
  21. 21
  22. 22
  23. 23
  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
  66. 66
  67. 67
  68. 68
  69. 69
  70. 70
  71. 71
  72. 72
  73. 73
  74. 74
  75. 75
  76. 76
  77. 77
  78. 78
  79. 79
  80. 80
  81. 81

FAQ

Is this book in Chinese or English?
According to the source material, this is a public-domain ebook released by Project Gutenberg, in English and classified as English literature. Readers who need a Chinese translation must look for another edition; this edition suits readers with some English reading ability to read the original directly.
Can I read this directly without having read other works by Gissing?
Yes. This is a stand-alone novel and does not depend on prior reading. However, Gissing's works often center on middle-class marriage, vocation, and social pressure; knowing this background will make it easier to grasp the focus of the characters' debates.
What exactly does "emancipation" in the title refer to?
From the source material, the book revolves around the characters' choices among marriage, emotion, and personal freedom, and "emancipation" points more to personal liberation of ideas and life choices than to a grand political movement. Its specific meaning should be understood through the characters' circumstances and dialogue, and should not be reduced to a single doctrine.

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About the author

George Gissing (Gissing, George, 1857-1903) was an English novelist, though public information about his life and education is limited. The library holds 24 of his works, most of which focus on the living conditions of the urban lower classes and those on the margins of the middle class, while also touching on themes of personal growth and self-discipline; they are commonly classified under inspirational growth. His representative works include New Grub Street, The Odd Women, The Nether World and Born in Exile. These works mostly present individual fates under poverty, class and professional pressure in a realistic style, with a cold and restrained tone. He also wrote By the Ionian Sea, a travelogue of southern Italy, and The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft, an essayistic work, revealing his observant and introspective side, as well as short story collections such as The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories.

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