The Lost Guidon

Murfree, Mary Noailles, 1850-1922Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.0

Word count: 30K words
Chapters: 4

Summary

The Lost Guidon is another short work by Murfree available through Project Gutenberg. The title's "guidon" refers to a cavalry unit's flag, suggesting a military or frontier setting. Murfree excels at staging mountain communities and placing characters under the tension of honor, loyalty, and loss; in this brief span she builds atmosphere and brings the emotional arc to a close with restrained language, while landscape description carries much of the narrative weight. As a public-domain electronic text, it is easy to search in full and to verify quotations, making it suitable for literature-course reading lists and for scholars doing close textual analysis. Readers may note how the flag motif acquires symbolic meaning and how the author handles memory and regret within the short-story form. Those expecting a full-length military narrative may find the book slight, but readers interested in the art of the short story and in local-color literature will find a sample worth savoring.

Editor's review

The Lost Guidon is another short work by Murfree included in Project Gutenberg; the title's "guidon" refers to a cavalry troop flag, suggesting a military or frontier setting. Murfree excels at using mountain regions as her stage, placing characters within tensions of honor, loyalty, and loss; this piece achieves atmospheric setup and emotional resolution within limited space, with restrained language in which landscape description carries important narrative weight. As a public-domain electronic text, it facilitates full-text search and quotation verification, making it suitable for literature course readings and for researchers conducting close reading analysis at the original-text level. While reading, note how the military flag as an image is endowed with symbolic meaning, and how the author handles themes of memory and regret in short-form fiction. If you expect a full-length military narrative, this book may seem slight, but for readers interested in the short-story art and local-color literature, it offers a sample worth savoring.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Literary specialists interested in American Southern literature and the local-color tradition
General readers interested in American frontier or military-themed short stories
Teachers needing public-domain English short stories for classroom reading materials
Self-learners improving English literary appreciation through close reading of original texts

Not a good fit for

Readers expecting lengthy battle scenes and a complete military narrative
Beginner learners needing modern annotated editions or bilingual editions
Readers who prefer contemporary urban themes and fast-paced narratives

Reading tips

First clarify the meaning of guidon and the cavalry background before entering the text, which reduces comprehension barriers.
On a second reading, focus on passages where the flag appears and trace changes in its symbolic meaning.
After reading, write a hundred-word summary in your own words covering the key choices and the ending.

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

What does guidon mean in the title?

Guidon refers to the flag used by a cavalry unit or troop, and also to the flag-bearer. Understanding this image helps grasp the story's background and symbolic clues.

Is this suitable for classroom reading?

Yes. It is short and regionally distinctive in language, making it easy to read and discuss within one class session, and it also serves well as an example of local-color literature.

How does it relate to the author's other works?

Both books are short stories by Murfree set in mountain regions and can be cross-referenced in theme and narrative technique, but each stands alone and need not be read in order.

Comments

Find this 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

Murfree, Mary Noailles, 1850-1922 Author

Mary Noailles Murfree (1850-1922) was an American writer of local color literature, best known for her novels and short stories set in the mountain regions of Tennessee. Her works often portray the customs and people of the Great Smoky Mountains, blending realistic observation with a legendary tone. Her representative works include The Prophet of the Great Smoky Mountains, The Ordeal: A Mountain Romance of Tennessee, The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain, and Other Stories, and The Phantoms of the Foot-Bridge, and Other Stories. Twenty-six of her works are included in this collection, commonly classified under inspirational growth, with many stories focusing on mountain youths coming of age and showing resilience in hardship. Public information about the details of her life is limited, so no speculation is offered here.