The White Sister

Crawford, F. Marion (Francis Marion), 1854-1909Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.3

Word count: 500K words
Chapters: 51

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 White Sister by F. Marion CrawfordAuthor: Crawford, F. Marion (Francis Marion), 1854-1909,Language: English, Class: PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature, Release Date: Jul 16, 2006

Editor's review

F. Marion Crawford was a prolific American novelist of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and The White Sister belongs to his European-set narratives of emotion and fate. The story revolves around family ties, love, and religious choice, placing its characters under the strain between religious duty and personal feeling; it is strongly dramatic and carries the typical appeal of popular fiction of its time. Its value lies in showing how novels of that era handled themes such as sacrifice, loyalty, and the situation of women, and in letting readers experience Crawford's fluent storytelling. As a public-domain ebook, it works well as supplementary reading for understanding late nineteenth-century Anglo-American popular literature, rather than as a substitute for modern psychological fiction. While reading, pay attention to the social norms behind the characters' choices and to how the narrator guides the reader's sympathy.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers who enjoy late nineteenth-century Anglo-American popular fiction
Readers interested in stories of religion and emotional choice
Literature lovers who want to understand Crawford's style
Learners who need public-domain English novels for extensive reading

Not a good fit for

Readers who prefer fast-paced contemporary suspense or strong plot twists
Readers who find the religious background and period morality hard to relate to
Readers expecting rigorous historical research or a modern feminist perspective

Reading tips

Learn a little about the European setting before entering the character relationships; the reading will go more smoothly.
Make a brief list of each major choice the main characters make and observe how their motives change.
When reading the original English, don't get stuck on old-fashioned expressions; grasp the plot and the characters' attitudes first.
After reading, compare it with similar novels of the same period and discuss how religion and emotion are narrated.

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 kind of story is this book mainly?

It is a popular novel set in Europe, centered on family ties, love, and religious choice, with characters struggling between religious duty and personal feeling. It leans toward a melodramatic narrative of fate rather than detective or science fiction.

Do I need to know about the religious background first?

No specialized knowledge is required, but basic familiarity with monasteries and nuns' vows helps. The novel supplies the necessary background through the plot, and readers can understand the main conflict simply by following the characters' situation.

How difficult is the original English?

The book was written in the late nineteenth to early twentieth century, so the language is more formal than contemporary fiction and some sentences are long. Readers with intermediate English can try it; read one chapter first to gauge the difficulty, then decide whether to read closely or extensively.

What is the difference between the public-domain edition and modern editions?

Public-domain ebooks are usually prepared by volunteers from old editions and may retain old spellings and punctuation, with plain formatting. Modern editions may be revised and include introductions, but the public-domain edition is free and easy to obtain, making it good for sampling.

Comments

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About the author

Crawford, F. Marion (Francis Marion), 1854-1909 Author

F. Marion Crawford (Francis Marion Crawford, 1854–1909) was a notably prolific English-language novelist. The library holds 46 of his works, spanning a wide range of subjects: long novels set in Italy, such as Saracinesca, Greifenstein and Fair Margaret: A Portrait; the two-volume Ave Roma Immortalis, which portrays the history and monuments of Rome; the Arabian tale Khaled, A Tale of Arabia; and atmospheric ghost stories including The Upper Berth and Wandering Ghosts. These works show a writer skilled at evoking foreign and historical settings, with clear narrative structure and steady plotting, accomplished both in popular long fiction and in tales of the strange. His supernatural stories in particular have been favored by later anthologies and have had some influence on the English ghost-story tradition. Because public information is limited, biographical details are not elaborated here; the outline above rests on the works in the library's holdings.