The Pink Shop cover

The Pink Shop

Rating 3.1
Word count
402K words
Chapters
41

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 Pink Shop by Fergus HumeAuthor: Hume, Fergus, 1859-1932,Language: English, Class: PR: Language and Literatures: English literature, Release Date: Dec 23, 2017

Editor's review

The Pink Shop is an English novel by Fergus Hume, made available as a free ebook by Project Gutenberg. Hume was known for plot-driven popular fiction, and this book serves equally well as an accessible introduction to the landscape of late nineteenth-century English popular literature. The value of the Gutenberg edition lies in easy access to the text and clear formatting, making it suitable for reading on electronic devices. Readers can treat it as a relaxed exercise in reading English in the original: the plot generally moves quickly and the language is of moderate difficulty, so it offers both the pace of old-fashioned suspenseful storytelling and the pleasures of popular fiction of its time. There is no need to read word by word; grasp the characters and the sequence of events first, then return to the descriptive details for a fuller experience. For readers studying popular literature or doing extensive reading in English, this is a low-cost, easy-to-start choice.

Who it's for

A good fit for

  • Readers who enjoy English popular fiction and want light original-language material for extensive reading
  • Fans of genre fiction interested in late nineteenth-century English suspenseful storytelling
  • Students who need free electronic texts for English reading practice
  • Enthusiasts studying Project Gutenberg and early ebook texts

Not a good fit for

  • Readers who prefer a Chinese translation and are not comfortable with English originals
  • Serious literary readers who prefer highly literary or formally experimental works
  • Beginners who need detailed notes and introductions

Reading tips

  1. Read through the chapter titles and opening paragraphs first, and clarify the character relationships before going into details.
  2. Keep a separate list of unfamiliar words and look them up together after finishing, so as not to interrupt the rhythm frequently.
  3. You may consult the Project Gutenberg page for information about the source of the edition, but there is no need to rely on additional notes.
  4. After each chapter, retell the plot in two or three sentences to check whether you have grasped the main thread.

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

FAQ

Is this book in Chinese or English?
The original is in English. Project Gutenberg provides the English electronic text, which is suitable for readers with some foundation in English reading. If you need a Chinese version, you will have to look for a translation separately.
Can I understand it without notes?
Most plot passages are understandable, but old-fashioned expressions and period vocabulary may cause difficulties. Aim to understand the main thread; skip individual unfamiliar words for the moment and look them up together after reading.
Is it suitable for learning English?
It can serve as extensive reading material. Its length and difficulty are moderate, and its strong plot makes it easy to keep going; however, it is not suitable as an intensive reading textbook, and it lacks grammar explanations and vocabulary lists.

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About the author

Fergus Hume (Fergusson Wright Hume) Author · English · 1859–1932

Fergus Hume (1859–1932) was a British novelist. Born in England, he moved with his family to New Zealand as a child, studied at the University of Otago and qualified as a lawyer. In 1885 he went to Melbourne, and the following year he published The Mystery of a Hansom Cab at his own expense, achieving instant fame; the book is regarded as a bestselling classic in the history of detective fiction. In 1888 Hume returned to England to settle, and thereafter devoted himself to detective and suspense fiction, producing more than a hundred works in his lifetime, of which 66 are held in this collection, including The Silent House, The Gentleman Who Vanished and The Spider. He died in Essex in 1932.

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