The Sea Monarch

Westerman, Percy F. (Percy Francis), 1876-1959Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.0
Word count
310K words
Chapters
31

Tags

English Originals Children's Literature Risk ControlLegendary LivesAdventure JourneyFamily BondsHeroismComing of AgePopular NarrativeExotic CultureYouth Reading

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 Sea Monarch by Percy F. WestermanAuthor: Westerman, Percy F. (Percy Francis), 1876-1959,Language: English, Class: PZ: Language and Literatures: Juvenile belles lettres, Release Date: Sep 29, 2018

Editor's review

The Sea Monarch is a young-adult sea adventure novel by the English author Percy F. Westerman (1876–1959), available as a free e-book from Project Gutenberg. Westerman wrote prolifically for young readers throughout his life, often on themes of seafaring, flight, and exploration, and this book carries the typical qualities of such work: a voyage at sea as its stage, brisk plotting, an emphasis on action and courage, and clear character relationships—well suited to reading for entertainment. For Chinese readers its value lies not only in the story itself but in offering a sample of the narrative conventions of early twentieth-century English adventure fiction for young readers: how a boy hero is shaped, how peril and turning points are arranged, how nautical knowledge is woven into the plot. Because the original is a public-domain English e-book, reading it requires some grounding in English, especially an ease with the rather plain narrative pace of early adventure fiction and with usage habits unlike those of today. It is best treated as extensive-reading material in English or as an introductory text for genre studies, not as a work to be read for complex literary qualities.

Who it's for

A good fit for

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Reading tips

  1. Read a chapter or two first to confirm you can handle the pace of the English before planning the whole book.
  2. Keep pen and paper to note nautical vocabulary and character relationships, reducing later obstacles.
  3. Read chapter by chapter, and after each one retell the main plot points in your own words.
  4. If reading for research, note the common plot devices and character types of adventure fiction as you go.

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

FAQ

Is this book suitable for English beginners to read directly? Not really for complete beginners or elementary readers. The original is an early twentieth-century English adventure novel for young readers; the narration is fairly plain, but its vocabulary and sentence patterns bear the marks of their time. It is better attempted once you have intermediate English reading ability, or read in sections with a dictionary and bilingual aids.
What kind of story is this book mainly? Judging by Westerman's authorial bent and the book's title, it is a young-adult novel of sea adventure, centered on a voyage and the handling of peril. For the specific plot, rely on the original text; readers are advised not to presuppose too much and simply take it as a genre adventure story.
What should I keep in mind when reading the public-domain e-book? The Project Gutenberg edition is a free e-book, laid out mainly as plain text and possibly lacking the navigation and notes of modern e-books. Use reading software that supports word lookup and bookmarks, and note the edition information so as not to mix texts from different sources.

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

Westerman, Percy F. (Percy Francis), 1876-1959 Author

Percy F. Westerman (1876–1959) was a British author known for adventure novels for young readers. Public information about him is limited, and few details of his life are available. The library holds 36 of his works, mostly naval and war stories: A Watch-dog of the North Sea and Under the White Ensign are set against naval operations in the Great War; The Nameless Island is a modern Robinson Crusoe tale of survival on a deserted island; and The Quest of the Golden Hope returns to seventeenth-century maritime adventure. He also wrote early aviation fiction such as The Dreadnought of the Air, and battlefield stories like A Lively Bit of the Front, about the New Zealand Rifles on the Western Front. His novels are tightly plotted, with attention to technical detail and discipline, and were influential in early twentieth-century English boys' fiction.