The Golden House

Warner, Charles Dudley, 1829-1900Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.3
Word count
434K words
Chapters
44

Tags

English Originals Foreign Literature Social ObservationPower GameHuman NatureComplex HumanitySocial CritiqueWealth Stories

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 Golden House by Charles Dudley WarnerAuthor: Warner, Charles Dudley, 1829-1900,Language: English, Class: PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature, Release Date: Oct 10, 2004

Editor's review

The Golden House is a long narrative work by Warner, catalogued under American and Canadian literature, with an electronic edition released by Project Gutenberg. The novel unfolds characters and family relationships around a mansion, in a realist and satirical mode characteristic of late nineteenth-century American literature; it suits readers curious about the fiction of that period. Its strength lies in organizing plot around a residence and using everyday scenes to show friction over social class, marriage, and money, giving it the texture of a novel of manners. As a public-domain text, it is convenient for classroom excerpts and close reading, and makes a useful supplement to American literary history. Note that it was written long ago: its pacing differs from modern fiction and some social attitudes bear the mark of their time; read with historical awareness rather than judging by contemporary standards.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Not a good fit for

Reading tips

  1. Read the opening setup of the mansion and character relationships first, then follow the family thread.
  2. Note the narrator's tone and satirical technique, distinguishing characters' views from the author's attitude.
  3. Consult background on late nineteenth-century American society to understand the book's views on marriage and money.

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

FAQ

Is this book suitable for classroom excerpts? Yes. As a public-domain English novel, its length and subject matter make it easy to excerpt for discussing narrative perspective, family themes, and description of manners. Teachers can pair it with period background to help students understand old-fashioned social attitudes and narrative pacing.
How difficult is it to read? It is a late nineteenth-century English novel: sentences and pacing are slower than modern works and the vocabulary is not especially difficult overall, but readers need patience with the expansive style. Readers at university English level should manage; consult annotated materials when cultural background gets in the way.
Is the style consistent with the author's other works? Warner is known for essays and fiction; this is one of his narrative works, with a realist and satirical tendency toward the novel of manners. Readers of his essays will recognize the same attention to everyday scenes and social habits, though the novel relies more on character and plot.

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

Warner, Charles Dudley, 1829-1900 Author

Charles Dudley Warner (1829–1900) was an American writer and editor, with fifty-seven of his works held in this catalog. His subjects are notably wide-ranging: there are familiar essays on gardening and everyday leisure such as My Summer in a Garden, a study of a fellow writer in Washington Irving, and travel accounts of foreign places, including In the Levant, My Winter on the Nile and Our Italy, the last concerning Italy. The chapters associated with The Gilded Age indicate that he also took part in writing on social themes. The catalog classifies him under inspirational growth, suggesting that some of his works carry a tone of counsel and self-reflection. Public information is limited, so rather than dwelling on biographical detail, readers may begin with his essays and travel writings and appreciate their easy, unhurried style and close observation.