Vixen, Volume I

Braddon, M. E. (Mary Elizabeth), 1835-1915Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.4

Word count: 349K words
Chapters: 35

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.Vixen, Volume I. by M. E. BraddonAuthor: Braddon, M. E. (Mary Elizabeth), 1835-1915,Language: English, Class: PR: Language and Literatures: English literature, Release Date: Aug 9, 2008

Editor's review

Volume I of Vixen comes from the prolific M. E. Braddon and bears her trademark plot tension and sharp observation of social class. This volume mainly sets out relationships and seeds of conflict, moving more leisurely than later volumes and serving as a transition into the whole work. Braddon excels at creating suspense from everyday scenes, and her dialogue often carries barbs; readers will gain more by noting subtle differences in what characters say. As a public-domain ebook, this volume makes it easy to search names and events at any time and is suitable for reading against late Victorian novels. Note that this is only the opening of a long work; read alone, many threads remain unresolved, so readers should be prepared to continue with later volumes.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers who enjoy late Victorian sensation fiction and family narratives
Scholars and students studying Braddon or nineteenth-century popular literature
Readers comfortable with multi-volume novels who are willing to proceed step by step
Writers needing public-domain English texts for textual analysis or citation

Not a good fit for

Readers who want a complete story in one volume with immediate resolution
Readers impatient with old-style long sentences and slow setup
Readers who only want excerpts and do not plan to continue with later volumes

Reading tips

Read Volume I first to grasp the relationships, then decide whether to continue with later volumes.
Record forms of address and family relationships while reading to avoid confusion in a multi-volume narrative.
Compare with Braddon's other works to observe her usual methods of building suspense.
Use the ebook's search function to trace foreshadowing and organize the plot 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

Can I get a complete story from Volume I alone?

No. Volume I mainly introduces characters and sets up conflicts; many threads only unfold or resolve in later volumes. If you want a complete story, read at least the later volumes, or treat Volume I as the introduction to a long work.

How difficult is the English in this novel?

It has the language style of late Victorian popular fiction: long sentences and detailed description, but vocabulary is generally not obscure. Upper-intermediate college English readers can read with lookup tools; beginners should read chapter summaries before tackling the original.

Is the public-domain ebook suitable for academic citation?

It can serve as a source for reading and preliminary citation, but formal papers should verify wording and page numbers against authoritative print or scholarly editions. When citing, note the Project Gutenberg edition and date of access, and avoid mistaking electronic layout differences for differences in the original text.

Comments

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About the author

Braddon, M. E. (Mary Elizabeth), 1835-1915 Author

Mary Elizabeth Braddon (1835–1915) was an English novelist of the Victorian era, known for her intricate, suspenseful popular fiction. Her representative work, Lady Audley's Secret, revolves around concealed identity and hidden secrets and is regarded as part of the "sensation novel" tradition, enjoying wide popularity in its day. The collection holds 35 of her works, including, besides the above, the three-volume Aurora Floyd, Wyllard's Weird, the three-volume John Marchmont's Legacy, All along the River and Run to Earth. She excelled at weaving crime, deception and emotional entanglements into domestic settings, with brisk pacing and dramatic turns of fortune; her work has had a lasting influence on later popular and suspense fiction. Public information on the details of her life is limited, so they are not elaborated here.