The Sundial cover

The Sundial

Rating 2.5
Word count
438K words
Chapters
44

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 Sundial by Fred M. WhiteAuthor: ,Language: English, Class: PR: Language and Literatures: English literature, Release Date: Jun 29, 2017

Editor's review

The Sundial is an English novel by Fred M. White, digitized by Project Gutenberg as a public-domain eBook. Classified under English literature, it reflects an author known for prolific plot-driven fiction, typically built around suspense and turns in his characters' fortunes. Its length and structure make it a useful entry point to late Victorian and Edwardian popular fiction: readers can see how serial novels of the period sustained narrative tension through objects, coincidence, and dialogue. Note that public-domain electronic editions usually lack modern introductions or annotations, so the reading experience is closer to the original text. Read it in literary-historical context, attending both to the story and to narrative pacing and period attitudes. Suited to readers looking to broaden their reading of English popular fiction, but not to those expecting deep psychological characterization or engagement with modern issues.

Who it's for

A good fit for

  • Readers looking to broaden their reading of English popular fiction from the late 19th to early 20th century
  • Literature enthusiasts interested in plot-driven classic fiction and serial narrative
  • Learners who need public-domain English texts for language study or translation practice

Not a good fit for

  • Serious-literature readers who prefer modernist deep psychological description and complex structure
  • Beginners who can only read classic English fiction with modern annotations and introductions

Reading tips

  1. Read one chapter first to get a feel for the narrative pace, then decide whether to read closely or extensively.
  2. Note where key objects and character relationships appear; this helps understand how the plot is driven.
  3. After reading, compare with contemporary English popular novels, comparing how suspense is set up and endings are handled.

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 English learners?
It can serve as extensive reading material, but it is an early English novel whose sentence patterns and vocabulary are distant from modern English. Intermediate reading ability or above is recommended; use a dictionary and background materials, aiming first to follow the plot and then to examine the language closely.
What is the difference between the public-domain edition and commercial editions?
The Project Gutenberg edition mainly provides the original public-domain text and usually lacks modern editorial introductions, annotations, or copyright-page information. Its advantages are that it is free and complete; its drawback is the lack of supporting material, so readers must supply background themselves.

Comments

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About the author

Project Gutenberg is not a single author but a nonprofit digital library founded by Michael Hart in 1971 and one of the world's earliest free ebook platforms. It relies on volunteers to digitize, proofread, and freely distribute public-domain works and is now operated by the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Its collection contains 2,692 works, mainly religious texts, epics, and story collections, including the King James Bible and the Douay-Rheims volumes, the epic Mahabharata, a literal translation of the Arabian Nights, and Danish editions of the Old and New Testaments. Public information is limited, and its nature is closer to a public-interest compiling and dissemination body; these texts are open to the public, easy to consult and circulate, and have had a profound influence on the spread of ebooks and the preservation of public-domain resources.

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