The Green Mouse
Public-domain ebook
The Green Mouse
Language: en11,303 downloads on Project Gutenberg
Subjects
Public-domain ebook sourced from Project Gutenberg #10441.
About this book
The Green Mouse is a whimsical blend of fantasy and early‑twentieth‑century New York society, framed as a series of episodic chapters that follow a young, idle heir turned would‑be magician. The opening places the protagonist in Central Park, where his uncanny talent for coaxing a squirrel into sleep becomes the catalyst for a sudden encounter with a distressed rider and her horse. The narrative weaves his internal monologue about poverty, education, and a fledgling love interest with vivid descriptions of park scenery and the absurdity of his magical control, setting a tone that oscillates between idle introspection and lively, almost theatrical action.
Chambers writes in a florid, self‑conscious style that reflects the Edwardian era’s penchant for elaborate diction and moralizing prefaces. The prose is peppered with rhetorical flourishes, philosophical asides, and a touch of satire aimed at contemporary literary tastes. Readers who enjoy a mixture of fanciful magic, period‑specific social commentary, and a leisurely, dialogue‑rich pace, particularly those fond of early‑1900s American fiction that toys with imagination and courtship, will find this work an engaging, if unconventional, reading experience.
Characters in The Green Mouse
- John CorbinTall Edwardian gentleman, dark hair, waistcoat and frock coat, pocket watch, dignified expression
The opening · free to read
To the literary, literal, and scientific mind purposeless fiction is abhorrent. Fortunately we all are literally and scientifically inclined; the doom of purposeless fiction is sounded; and it is a great comfort to believe that, in the near future, only literary and scientific works suitable for man, woman, child, and suffragette, are to adorn the lingerie-laden counters in our great department shops.
It is, then, with animation and confidence that the author politely offers to a regenerated nation this modern, moral, literary, and highly scientific work, thinly but ineffectually disguised as fiction, in deference to the prejudices of a few old-fashioned story-readers who still survive among us.
R. W. C.
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