Man As He Is

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About the book

First published in four volumes in 1792, Man As He Is is Robert Bage’s witty novel of manners, ideas, rank, friendship, and moral independence. Following Sir George Paradyne through English and continental society, Bage tests inherited privilege against reason, affection, and lived experience—the concerns he would later sharpen in Hermsprong; or, Man As He Is Not.

This Nile Book Store edition presents the complete four-volume text as a clean, consumer-ready reflowable EPUB. The type can be resized, the text is selectable, and the full table of contents makes its 119 printed chapter divisions easy to navigate. It is not a scan or fixed-layout facsimile.

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The family of the Paradynes is very ancient in England. Walter Erdolf Paradyne held of Henry the second in capite; and having delivered up one of the king’s castles when nothing was left in it to eat, the monarch ordered him into close custody in the castle of Winchester. Alice, his wife, paid this gracious king ten marks, to be with her husband one night. Those were the times when kings were considerate, and attentive to the wishes of the subject.

When the antiquity of a family is once established, it seldom renders any very material service to it to enquire why the original honours were bestowed, or how supported; satisfied, therefore, with having built upon a solid foundation, the right of looking down upon the common herd; I pass over from the reign of Henry the second to that of George the third, without taking the trouble to make comparisons.

From Chapter I. The complete downloadable edition includes all four volumes; a separate five-chapter sample has also been preserved with the edition files.

Edition details

• Language: English
• Format: EPUB 3 (reflowable)
• Length: approximately 145,961 words
• Complete four-volume 1792 text
• 119 printed chapter divisions with linked navigation
• Selectable, searchable text with resizable type
• Public-domain work; this digital edition prepared by Nile Book Store

Historical note: the original 1792 printing moves directly from Chapter LXXXVIII to Chapter XC. This edition preserves that original numbering rather than inventing a missing chapter.