Resumen
Resumen de El huésped
Para quién es
For readers who love Victorian and Edwardian London, suspense built on suspicion, and crime stories rooted in character rather than clues. Fear, money and family loyalty turn an ordinary home into a place of secrets.
De qué trata este libro
The Lodger is a crime novel by Marie Belloc Lowndes, published in 1913. It grew from a shorter tale she wrote a few years earlier, and it draws on the Jack the Ripper murders that frightened London in 1888. Lowndes did not write a detective story in which a clever investigator hunts the killer. She tells it from inside a small, shabby house in Marylebone, and she asks what it would feel like to suspect that the man upstairs is a murderer.
The house belongs to Mr. and Mrs. Bunting, an older couple who once worked in service in wealthy homes and now live in dread of the workhouse. They have no money, no lodgers and no way out. Then a tall, pale, soft-spoken gentleman knocks at the door, asks for rooms and offers to pay well. Around London, meanwhile, a killer called the Avenger is murdering women in the fog and leaving a mocking note at each scene.
In this summary you will meet the Buntings, their young daughter Daisy and the detective who courts her, and you will see how fear, money and loyalty pull at one woman in particular. Let us begin with the couple themselves and the hard luck that brings the stranger to their door.
En este resumen
- 1Two servants fall on hard timesFree
- 2A strange gentleman asks for rooms
- 3The lodger's habits grow stranger
- 4The Avenger stalks the foggy streets
- 5Daisy, Joe Chandler and the watching police
- 6Ellen's suspicion becomes a heavy secret
- 7Fear begins to divide the household
- 8Respectability, money and the cost of silence
- 9How Lowndes builds dread without a chase
Idea clave 1 de 9
Two servants fall on hard times
The novel opens with Mr. and Mrs. Bunting sitting in the front room of their little house in Marylebone. They are not young, and they are very afraid. Both spent their working lives in service, in the households of the rich, where they learned to be quiet, tidy and respectable. Now their savings are almost gone, and they have taken to renting out rooms to keep the roof over their heads.
The trouble is that nobody has come. The first floor sits empty, the bills grow, and the Buntings have begun to sell and pawn the little they own. Mr. Bunting, whose first name is Robert, is a mild, easygoing man who still hopes that something will turn up. His wife Ellen is the sharper of the two. She sees the numbers clearly, and she knows how close they are to the edge.
Lowndes spends real care on this fear of poverty. For people like the Buntings, to fall is not just to be hungry. It is to lose the neat appearance and the good name they have worked for all their lives. Ellen would sooner do almost anything than end up in the workhouse, and the book never lets us forget that.
Daisy, Mr. Bunting's daughter by his first wife and Ellen's stepdaughter, does not live with them yet. She is a lively girl who is still in her teens, and she will soon bring some warmth into a house of worry.
All of this is set against the news of the day. Newspaper boys are shouting about a series of murders in the poorer parts of London, and the killer has given himself a name. The Buntings read about it the way ordinary people read about distant horrors. They have no idea that it is about to come very near.
That’s 1 of 9 key points.
The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
- Nothing to pay today · Renews every year
- We email you before you pay
- Cancel online in two clicks
Who’s who
- Ellen Bunting
- A proud former servant and landlady, she shares her husband’s poverty and grows suspicious of their paying guest.
- Mr. Bunting
- Ellen’s mild, trusting husband is a former servant who hopes their new lodger will relieve their financial distress.
- Mr. Sleuth
- The Buntings’ quiet, deeply religious lodger pays generously but unsettles Ellen with his secretive habits and nighttime outings.
- Daisy Bunting
- Mr. Bunting’s lively young daughter and Ellen’s stepdaughter is courted by Joe Chandler and likes the new lodger.
- Joe Chandler
- A cheerful young detective courting Daisy, he visits the Buntings while working on the disturbing Avenger murders.
About this edition
Every format is free to start, and print and large print are at cost.
- LengthAbout 81,000 words
- Reading timeAbout 5 h 25 min
- FormatseBook, large-print eBook, audiobook, 15-minute summary
- LanguagesEnglish and 11 other languages
Questions about El huésped
What is The Lodger by Marie Belloc Lowndes about?
It follows a poor couple in Marylebone who take in a gentle but strange lodger while a killer called the Avenger stalks London. The wife begins to suspect the man upstairs and must decide what to do.
Is The Lodger based on Jack the Ripper?
Yes, it draws on the Ripper murders of 1888. Lowndes changed the details and invented her own killer, the Avenger, and she focuses on the household that shelters a suspicious guest rather than on the police chase.
When was The Lodger written?
It was published as a novel in 1913, after Lowndes first told the story in a shorter form. It is set in Victorian London, in the fog and fear that followed the Ripper murders.
Who is Mr. Sleuth in The Lodger?
Mr. Sleuth is the tall, pale, religious gentleman who rents the first floor from the Buntings. He pays well, avoids meat, guards his bag and goes out at night, and his habits slowly alarm his landlady.
Is The Lodger a hard book to read?
No, the language is clear and the chapters are short. The suspense comes from Ellen Bunting's fears and the daily life of the house rather than from action.