Vittoria — Volume 2

Meredith, George, 1828-1909Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.6

Word count: 137K words
Chapters: 14

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.Vittoria — Volume 2 by George MeredithAuthor: Meredith, George, 1828-1909,Language: English, Class: PR: Language and Literatures: English literature, Release Date: Sep 1, 2003

Editor's review

Volume 2 of Vittoria continues Meredith's long narrative set against the Italian Risorgimento. In this volume, personal destinies and political upheaval intertwine more tightly, the plot moves at a noticeably faster pace, and dialogue and psychological portraiture carry equal weight, reflecting the dense craftsmanship characteristic of Victorian novelists handling historical subjects. Meredith's prose is dense and his sentences circuitous, which will pose a threshold for readers with little experience of nineteenth-century English fiction; yet those who settle into its rhythms will feel the author's sustained scrutiny of the tension between idealism and political reality. This volume suits use as supplementary reading in university courses on the Victorian novel and historical fiction, and also readers with a basic knowledge of Italian unification who wish to approach it from a literary angle. As a public-domain electronic text from Project Gutenberg, it is conveniently accessible and well suited to reading on electronic devices alongside notes and a character-relationship chart.

Who it's for

A good fit for

English literature students who need to study Victorian historical fiction
Readers interested in the Italian Risorgimento who want a literary perspective
Readers accustomed to nineteenth-century English novels who can accept a dense style
Organizers who need a public-domain electronic text for course materials or reading groups

Not a good fit for

Beginning readers not yet proficient in English who want an easy story
Contemporary genre-fiction readers who prefer fast plots and plain narration
Readers entirely unfamiliar with Italian history who do not wish to fill in background knowledge

Reading tips

Read Volume 1 first, or at least review the previous events, before entering this volume to avoid confusion over characters.
Keep a character-relationship chart as you read, noting factions and shifts in allegiance.
After each chapter, summarize the political and emotional developments in one or two sentences.
Read alongside a brief history of Italian unification to understand the historical context of the plot.

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

Can this book be read as Volume 2 on its own?

Not advisable. This volume is the middle of a long narrative, and its character relationships and political threads carry over from the previous volume; reading it alone can leave one confused about motives and causation. It is best to read Volume 1 first, or at least consult a summary of previous events before starting.

What level of English difficulty is it?

It ranks among the harder nineteenth-century English novels, with long sentences, many parenthetical elements, and period-flavored vocabulary. Readers with university-level English reading ability and some experience of Victorian fiction will find it smoother; an annotated edition or a reference translation can help where needed.

Any practical advice for reading the electronic edition?

A public-domain electronic text makes it easy to search names of people and places; use the search function to revisit passages where a character first appears. Bookmark key chapters and keep external notes on shifts in character allegiances; this noticeably reduces the reading burden.

Comments

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About the author

Meredith, George, 1828-1909 Author

George Meredith (1828–1909) was a nineteenth-century British novelist and poet, whose works are represented here by as many as 111 titles, indicating that his writing has continued to circulate among readers and researchers. His representative work, The Ordeal of Richard Feverel, centers on a father-son relationship and examines the conflicts of pride and emotion in a young man's growth; The Egoist, subtitled “A Comedy in Narrative,” uses marriage and social situations to portray character weaknesses and self-reflection. His novels are often marked by witty dialogue, psychological insight, and an ironic tone, with plot and character relationships unfolding layer by layer. Public information is limited, and biographical details remain to be supplemented, but the existing bibliography shows that narrative novels and multi-volume series form the main body of his work, reflecting the Victorian novel's detailed exploration of individual morality and emotional life.