Useful Knowledge: Volume 3. Animals
Tags
Summary
Editor's review
Who it's for
A good fit for
- Readers who want to understand 19th-century natural history writing through reading in the original English
- Popular science enthusiasts interested in the history of zoology and the evolution of scientific texts
- Learners who need English nonfiction for close-reading practice
- Readers who enjoy classical nature observation notes and do not seek the latest taxonomic knowledge
Not a good fit for
- Readers seeking current frontiers of zoology and the latest classification systems
- Beginners with weak English reading skills who need a Chinese guide or annotations
- Readers expecting a richly illustrated book with many pictures or photographs
Reading tips
- Read the table of contents first to understand the book's overall framework of animal classification, then choose chapters of interest for close reading
- Keep a notebook to record classifications in the book that are outdated or differ from today's, and compare them with modern sources
- Read one chapter at a time and, afterward, summarize in your own words the animals' characteristics and habits described in that chapter
- Read alongside a book on the history of natural history to understand the era in which the text was produced
About the publisher
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
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- 4
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FAQ
Is the animal knowledge in this book still accurate today?
How difficult is the English, and what level of reader is it suitable for?
Is this an e-book, and where can I get it?
Comments
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About the author
William Bingley (1774–1823) is an English author about whose life very little has survived; public information is limited, and his nationality, education, and professional career cannot be reliably established. What can be confirmed is that four of his works are held in this collection, all of them informative books written for general readers. The three volumes of Useful Knowledge, devoted respectively to minerals, vegetables, and animals, introduce common natural objects in a systematic way, in plain and orderly prose that prizes clarity and readability. Travels in North America, From Modern Writers draws on the accounts of recent travellers to give English readers an overview of what was being reported about various parts of North America. These works suggest that he excelled at organising and popularising existing knowledge rather than advancing original theories, and that his style was practical and lucid, suited to introductory reading. Judging from the surviving titles, his contribution lies chiefly in compiling natural history and foreign geography into accessible volumes for ordinary readers of his day.
