To the Highest Bidder

Kingsley, Florence Morse, 1859-1937Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

2.9

Word count: 385K words
Chapters: 39

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.To the Highest Bidder by Florence Morse KingsleyAuthor: Kingsley, Florence Morse, 1859-1937,Language: English, Class: PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature, Release Date: Apr 19, 2016

Editor's review

This novel comes from the hand of Florence Morse Kingsley, a popular American fiction writer of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and belongs to the typical tradition of domestic and sentimental narrative. The work takes the idea of "bidding," as suggested by its title, as its central image, unfolding around the choices characters make among interest, emotion, and morality; the plot advances through changes in the characters' circumstances and their inner conflicts rather than through mere dramatic coincidence. Kingsley's style favors delicate psychological portrayal and the elaboration of everyday scenes, offering a fairly concrete presentation of the social customs, family relations, and women's situation of the time, so that the reader can sense the character of popular fiction in that era. As a public-domain eBook, it is better suited as a text for understanding the genres of late nineteenth-century American popular fiction and for studying women's writing and domestic narrative than as a work to be read for the pleasures of a strong, fast-moving plot. In reading, it is worth noting how the narrator handles the characters' motives and how the metaphor of "bidding" unfolds layer by layer in the plot; this will make it easier to enter the work's structure of meaning.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers interested in late nineteenth-century American popular fiction and domestic ethical themes
Literature students studying early women writers and gender narrative
Readers who enjoy leisurely paced novels focused on psychological portrayal of characters
Those who need a public-domain English source text for textual analysis or translation practice

Not a good fit for

Readers who prefer strong plots and fast-paced genre fiction
Readers hoping for direct engagement with contemporary issues
Readers with limited English reading ability who need a Chinese translation

Reading tips

Read through once to grasp the main thread, then revisit the key turning points to see how the narrator prepares the ground for the characters' motives.
While reading, note the scenes in which the image of "bidding" appears and trace how its metaphorical meaning shifts through the plot.
Read alongside background material on late nineteenth-century American social customs and family values for comparison.
For the English original, it is advisable to advance through a fixed number of chapters each day, marking unfamiliar expressions first and looking them up together afterward.

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

Is this book a Chinese version or the original English?

This is an English public-domain eBook released by Project Gutenberg; the text is in English and there is no Chinese translation. It is suitable for readers with some foundation in English reading, or for those who need the original English text for research or translation practice.

There is no translation; can an average English reader manage it?

The work is popular fiction of the late nineteenth to early twentieth centuries. Its sentence structures are not especially difficult, but it contains period vocabulary and cultural background. Readers at intermediate level or above can work through it gradually with a dictionary; beginners are advised to start with an introduction or background material before entering the main text.

What is this book suitable for studying?

It can serve as a research text for late nineteenth-century American popular fiction, domestic ethical narrative, and early women writers' writing. Its treatment of family relations, character motives, and social customs reflects the genre characteristics and reader tastes of popular literature of the time.

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About the author

Kingsley, Florence Morse, 1859-1937 Author

Florence Morse Kingsley (1859–1937) was an American author whose life and career are documented only to a limited extent in public sources. Seven of her works are currently held in this collection, including An Alabaster Box, The Transfiguration of Miss Philura, To the Highest Bidder, And So They Were Married, Truthful Jane, Tor, a Street Boy of Jerusalem, and Those Brewster Children. Judging from these titles and themes, her writing often centers on family life, marriage, women's circumstances, and children's growth, using everyday settings and changes in character to move the plot forward, with gentle moral observation and popular narrative qualities. Stories featuring young girls or children as protagonists show her interest in themes of growth and emotional education. Her works occupy a modest place in early twentieth-century American popular fiction and may be of interest to readers of domestic fiction and women's writing of that period.