Resumen
Resumen de Cuentos y fantasías
Para quién es
You will love this book if you enjoy Edinburgh streets, comic bad luck, ghostly suspense and stories about fathers and sons. It suits readers who like short tales with sharp turns, warm humor and a dark shadow close behind.
De qué trata este libro
Tales and Fantasies brings together three stories by Robert Louis Stevenson, the Scottish writer who died in 1894. They are The Misadventures of John Nicholson, The Body Snatcher, and The Story of a Lie. Together they run to about forty-seven thousand words, and each one shows an ordinary man made small by a single weak moment. This summary gives you the heart of all three in about fifteen minutes.
The first tale is a comedy of bad luck set in Edinburgh, where a stout young clerk loses a bank deposit and then keeps on losing things. The second is a tale of dread told in a country inn, where a drunk old man meets a rich London doctor on a staircase and whispers a few strange words. The third follows a young Englishman who tells a gentle lie to a girl about her father, and watches it grow.
Stevenson writes with a quick, teasing voice and often speaks to you from the page. He loves to show how guilt, shame and fear push people to act badly, and how a little kindness can make things worse. Let us begin with John Nicholson, whose troubles start with a watch, a billiard room and a friend named Alan Houston.
En este resumen
- 1A Fat Clerk Pawns His Mother's WatchFree
- 2Ten Years Later He Comes Home Rich
- 3A Lonely House and a Cab Without End
- 4A Drunk Old Man Knows a Great Doctor
- 5A Student Learns to Ask No Questions
- 6Dick Collects People and Quarrels with His Father
- 7A Kind Lie Grows Out of Control
- 8Small Failings Grow Into Big Disasters
- 9A Teasing Voice Tells All Three Tales
Idea clave 1 de 9
A Fat Clerk Pawns His Mother's Watch
The first tale opens in Edinburgh with John Varey Nicholson, a stout and cheerful young man who is studying law in his father's office. The storyteller calls him stupid and says the gods seem to hate him. His father is a stern man who lives by the Disruption Principles, a narrow Scottish church creed, and by the silent gloom of his house in Randolph Crescent.
In that house John's loud laughter rings out like a curse, and his father hears only the sign of a weak mind. His sister Maria is pious and so easily shocked that she ends any talk with a polite refusal. His younger brother Alexander is sickly, clever, fond of drawing and full of dry remarks. Their mother has long been dead, and her gold watch now belongs to John.
Outside the house John follows Alan Houston, an idle, handsome friend, much as a dog follows a lord. Mr. Nicholson has forbidden the friendship, and John obeys only in name. One Saturday he is sent to pay four hundred pounds into the bank. He walks along Princes Street, hears the pipers play, and thinks of Miss Mackenzie, whom he will meet at dinner.
Then he calls at the hotel billiard room, where Alan begs for a small loan until Monday. John has no money of his own, so he pawns the gold watch under the false name John Froggs. The errand takes so long that the bank is shut when he returns. He tells himself that nobody will know, and he carries the money home in his greatcoat.
That night he walks Flora Mackenzie home and is so happy that he takes a dreamy detour onto Calton Hill, where two men rob him of the envelope. He runs to Alan for comfort, only to find him ruined and drunk in Colette's, an unlicensed supper house, just as the police arrive. At dawn he creeps home, and soon after breakfast John confesses everything to his father. Then, in panic, he takes coins from a drawer, leaves a farewell note and sets out on foot for California.
That’s 1 of 9 key points.
The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
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Questions about Cuentos y fantasías
What is Tales and Fantasies about?
It collects three stories by Robert Louis Stevenson. One follows a clerk in Edinburgh whose mistakes snowball, one is a dark tale about two medical men and a supply of bodies, and one shows a kind lie that grows.
Who are Fettes and Macfarlane in The Body Snatcher?
They were once assistants to an Edinburgh anatomy teacher. Fettes later becomes a drunk in the inn parlor at Debenham, while Macfarlane is a famous London doctor. Their meeting on the stairs starts the story.
What are the Disruption Principles in The Misadventures of John Nicholson?
They are the strict beliefs of a Scottish church party. Mr. Nicholson treats them as the center of his life and his home, though the narrator says an English reader could never make sense of them.
Is Tales and Fantasies based on a true story?
The tales are invented, though The Body Snatcher draws on the real trade in bodies for dissection around the time of the Edinburgh murderer Burke. Stevenson, who died in 1894, wrote them as fiction.
Is Tales and Fantasies easy to read?
It has lively plots, short chapters and a humorous, chatty narrator who guides you from scene to scene. The stories are clear and quick, with sharp talk and vivid places, so they suit reading aloud.