Your Boys

Smith, Gipsy, 1860-1947Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

2.9

Word count: 53K words
Chapters: 6

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.Your Boys by Gipsy SmithAuthor: Smith, Gipsy, 1860-1947,Language: English, Class: D501: History: General and Eastern Hemisphere: World War I (1914-1918), Release Date: Aug 9, 2005

Editor's review

Written by the British evangelist Gipsy Smith during the First World War, Your Boys is a public-domain work on world history and the Great War. Its value lies not in systematic military history but in a religious and moral response to the anxiety war brought to families: how parents steadied their fear, faith and hope when their sons went off to fight. The tone is exhortative and consolatory, marked by the preaching style of the period, and it serves as useful supporting material for understanding Anglo-American social attitudes and religious discourse during the war. Read it as a period text rather than objective history; noting its recurring vocabulary of faith and its emotional structure reveals how war entered the everyday language of ordinary families. It is short, best read slowly in quiet moments with pen and paper to note passages that resonate.

Who it's for

A good fit for

General history readers interested in the social attitudes of the First World War
Students of history and literature studying religion and war, and sermon texts
Readers who enjoy short consolatory writing and quiet reading
Readers curious about Anglo-American family values in the early twentieth century

Not a good fit for

Military historians expecting systematic battle analysis and military data
Readers hoping for a full biography or details of the author's life
Readers averse to a religious, exhortative tone

Reading tips

Start with the table of contents and opening to grasp the thread of family and faith.
Read a short section each day, noting key phrases that reflect wartime family feelings.
Compare with wartime letters and newspapers, noting differences in tone.
Write a short review at the end, distinguishing period exhortation from enduring emotional insight

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 a complete history of the First World War?

No. It is closer to exhortative writing set against the war, focusing on family feeling and faith rather than campaigns, troop deployments or strategy. For the course of the war, pair it with a systematic history.

Can I read it with only basic English?

The original is a public-domain English text with a speech- and sermon-like style; the vocabulary is not very difficult but the tone is old-fashioned. Readers with intermediate English can read slowly with a dictionary; to get an overview first, read the introduction and chapter titles before deciding whether to read it all.

What setting suits this book?

Quiet, uninterrupted moments for short readings, such as before bed or on a weekend morning. Its consolatory tone needs emotional space; reading it quickly tends to lose the flavor. Taking notes and excerpts deepens the sense of its period voice.

Comments

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About the author

Smith, Gipsy, 1860-1947 Author · British · 1860–1947

Gipsy Smith (Smith, Gipsy, 1860–1947) was a British evangelist of Romani descent. Active from the late nineteenth century into the first half of the twentieth, he held large evangelistic campaigns in Britain, the United States and elsewhere, drawing many listeners with his plain yet moving preaching and becoming a well-known itinerant evangelist of his time. One work by him is held in the collection, Your Boys. Public information on its publication details, contents and writing background is limited and difficult to describe in detail; judging from the title and the author's identity, its subject is likely related to the growth of young people, family upbringing or the cultivation of faith, possibly addressed to parents and young readers with an tone of exhortation and guidance. Overall, Smith's writing is consistent with his evangelistic ministry: plain in language and sincere in feeling, focused on conveying conviction and practical life lessons to ordinary readers, and representative of the popular religious literature of his day.