The Old Coast Road

Rothery, Agnes, 1888-1954Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.2
Word count
226K words
Chapters
23

Tags

English Originals Travel Human GeographyCoastal JourneyNature ObservationNostalgiaSlow ReadingDaily ReflectionsTravel EssaysRoute ExplorationLocal LandscapeSeaside Scenery

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 Old Coast Road by Agnes RotheryAuthor: Rothery, Agnes, 1888-1954,Language: English, Class: F001: United States local history: New England, Release Date: Jun 21, 2007

Editor's review

This book is a travel essay by Agnes Rothery about the old coast road of New England and belongs to the category of American local history. Its value lies not in offering the latest travel guide but in recording, from the perspective of the first half of the twentieth century, the towns, scenery, and human atmosphere along the route. The prose is unhurried and gentle, carrying the warmth of old-style travel literature and allowing readers to sense how a road changed across different eras. For readers who enjoy American local history, early travel literature, or the cultural background of New England, it is a light yet rewarding primary source. As a public-domain ebook, it is easily accessible, suitable for reading chapter by chapter in spare moments, and can also serve as supplementary reading for understanding the history and geography of the northeastern coastal United States. It should be noted that the information in the book is now distant from present-day reality and is best read as a historical text rather than a practical guide.

Who it's for

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Reading tips

  1. Read the table of contents and opening first to understand the author’s route, then read chapter by chapter, pausing as needed.
  2. Read alongside a map or New England reference materials to better reconstruct the scenes in the book.
  3. Treat it as light reading for bedtime or commuting, reading one or two chapters at a time without rushing.

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

FAQ

Is this book suitable for use as a New England travel guide? Not really. It records the sights and impressions of the author’s own era, focusing on historical atmosphere and humanistic essays rather than current transportation, accommodation, and opening information for attractions. If used as travel reference, it can only serve as background reading; practical itineraries still require up-to-date guides.
What level of English is needed to read this book? The language is English essay writing from the first half of the twentieth century, with unhurried sentence structures and vocabulary that is not especially difficult, though it contains period usage and local color. Readers with intermediate English reading ability can attempt it, and can consult maps for unfamiliar place names.
Why is this book worth reading today? Its value lies in preserving the appearance of a coastal road and the towns along it in a particular era, offering a concrete sample for understanding American local history and the tradition of travel literature. Readers who enjoy historical geography and old-style essays will find a different pace and perspective from contemporary travel writing.

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About the author

Rothery, Agnes, 1888-1954 Author · American · 1888–1954

Agnes Rothery (1888–1954) was an American travel writer. She wrote extensively about her journeys, and her travelogues cover many parts of Europe and the Americas, taking travel experiences and the scenery along the way as their main subjects. Her representative work is The Old Coast Road, whose title suggests an account of the landscapes along an old coastal road, reflecting her characteristic approach of using a road as a thread to link local scenes with the feelings of the journey. Public information about the full extent of her output and influence is limited, and only one of her works is held in this collection, so a more detailed assessment of her writing as a whole is difficult. Overall, she belongs to the circle of American travel writers active in the first half of the twentieth century; her work is grounded in firsthand travel and written in a plain, natural style, offering readable accounts of roads, towns, and local life in Europe and America at the time.