15 h 44 minAudiobook15 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at cost
Audiobook edition · 15 h 44 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What happens to love when a husband and wife cannot share the whole truth?
In Agatha's Husband, Dinah Maria Mulock Craik places marriage at the heart of a story about love, secrets and trust. The home is more than a setting. It is where duty meets desire, and where the choices between two people can draw them closer or keep them apart.
Craik looks beyond the wedding day to ask what a lasting relationship demands. Her warm, serious approach gives weight to things left unsaid and promises that must be lived, not merely spoken. At stake is the trust that allows a husband and wife to share their lives.
What you’ll discover
- Marriage beyond the wedding Explore a relationship that asks more of two people than love alone can answer.
- The weight of secrets Consider how hidden truths can threaten the closeness a marriage promises.
- Trust built through truth Follow the ties between honesty, affection and the choices that bind a couple.
- Drama close to home Find emotional stakes in domestic life, where quiet choices carry real weight.
- A plain moral voice Spend time with an earnest storyteller who takes love and duty seriously.
Who will love it
Readers who love Victorian domestic drama, strong-willed heroines, quiet heroes, family secrets and marriages that grow from duty into deep love. It also suits anyone who enjoys warm country characters and the Dorset coast.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A rich orphan with nothing to do
- A bear pit and a walk home
- Gossip, a letter and a hasty choice
- A hurried wedding and a quiet honeymoon
- The Harpers of Kingcombe Holm
- A quarrel, a flight and a farewell
- Love, trust and the gap between them
- Money, duty and the idea of home
- How Craik tells the story
Who’s who
- Agatha BowenA quick-tempered, warm-hearted nineteen-year-old heiress, orphaned and lonely, who longs for a home and learns what love asks of a wife.
- Nathanael Locke HarperA fair, grave young man raised in Canada by his uncle, who loves Agatha deeply and keeps a painful promise in silence.
- Major Frederick HarperNathanael's charming elder brother and Agatha's guardian, loved by drawing rooms, vain, kindly and dangerously careless with other people's trust.
- Anne ValeryA gentle, wise woman with silvering hair who owns Thornhurst, guides the young couple and carries a private sorrow.
- Uncle BrianNathanael's proud, bitter, honorable uncle, who raised him in Canada and whose fate worries the whole family.
- Elizabeth HarperThe crippled eldest sister who lives in a flower-filled room, sees everything and is trusted by everyone with their secrets.
- Marmaduke DugdaleCalled Duke, a plain, dreamy, kind brother-in-law who forgets his dinner, believes in Free Trade and loves his lively wife.
- Harriet DugdaleCalled Harrie, Nathanael's merry, outspoken sister who rides, talks, mothers three boys and adores her absent-minded husband.
Formats and delivery
- eBook
- On your phone, tablet, computer or Kindle, with the type as large as you like.
- Large-print eBook
- The same book in bigger, clearer type, from the first page.
- Audiobook
- 15 h 44 min, complete, read by Lucas Linden.
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas in about 15 minutes, to read or to hear.
- Paperback
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Hardcover
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print paperback
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print hardcover
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
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Agathas Ehemann
by Dinah Maria Mulock Craik · 1853
A proud young heiress marries a quiet stranger and finds a secret between them that no vow can break.
Medium level10–20 hours to read25 languages
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In short
Agatha's Husband is a novel by Dinah Maria Mulock Craik, the English writer who died in 1887. It follows Agatha Bowen, a nineteen-year-old heiress with a quick tongue and a black kitten, and the quiet man she agrees to marry within weeks of meeting him.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A rich orphan with nothing to do
Agatha Bowen is nineteen and lives as a lodger in Doctor Ianson's house in Bedford Square, London. Her father, a rich man from India, has died at sea, and she met only his closed black coffin at Southampton. She has money, rooms of her own, a black kitten called Tittens and no family. Her married friends spend whole afternoons planning her marriage.
Craik draws her with affection. Agatha speaks fast, never says more than she must, and blushes a dark brown instead of a pretty pink. She has a temper, hates needlework and calls young men boys. Her walk is a bold, springing step that seems to belong to open country, and her face is so unlike an English rose that she will soon be teased about it.
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What is Agatha's Husband about?
It tells of Agatha Bowen, a lonely young heiress who marries Nathanael Harper out of gratitude, then finds a secret and a clash of pride between them. The book asks what turns a legal marriage into a true union.
Who is Anne Valery in Agatha's Husband?
Anne Valery is a calm, wise woman of about forty who owns Thornhurst in Dorset and has known the Harper family since childhood. She becomes a guide and mother figure to Agatha, and she holds a private sorrow of her own.
Who is Uncle Brian?
Uncle Brian is Nathanael's uncle, who took him to Canada at the age of ten and raised him. He is proud, honorable and bitter, and his whereabouts and eventual return worry and excite the whole family.
The author
Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
1826–1887 · English novelist and poet
Dinah Maria Mulock Craik (1826–1887) was a British novelist and poet. She was born in Stoke-on-Trent and lived in London and later in Shortlands, Kent, where she died. Her books include Agatha’s Husband (1853), John Halifax, Gentleman (1856), and The Little Lame Prince and His Travelling Cloak (1875).
More by Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
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