Resumen
Resumen de Los amigos apasionados
Para quién es
For readers who love Edwardian fiction, novels of ideas and stories about love set against social rules, with passion, loyalty and women's freedom at their heart.
De qué trata este libro
The Passionate Friends is a novel by H. G. Wells, published in 1913. It is a love story told in the first person by Stephen Stratton, who looks back over his life and sets down what his love for one woman, Mary, has cost him and taught him. Wells wrote it in the years before the First World War, when ideas about marriage, women's freedom and the duties of the individual were under hot argument in Britain.
The book is a different kind of work from the scientific romances that made Wells known, such as The Time Machine. Here the strange machinery is the social order itself: money, family pressure, marriage law and public opinion. You get a close, honest account of how two clever people try to live by their feelings in a world that does not make room for them. And you get the question the book keeps asking. What do we owe to passion, and what do we owe to the people who depend on us? Let us begin with the narrator and the woman he loves.
En este resumen
- 1A man looks back on his lifeFree
- 2Mary and Stephen form a bond
- 3Marriage, money and social pressure
- 4Passion against duty and freedom
Idea clave 1 de 4
A man looks back on his life
The story is told by Stephen Stratton, who writes in the first person and addresses his account to a reader close to him, in a spirit of frankness. He does not offer a tidy tale. He tries to explain how he became the man he is, and he says plainly that love has shaped him more than ambition or work.
This frame matters because it gives the book its tone. Stephen is not a hero who knows his own mind from the start. He is a thinker looking at his own mistakes, and he is often hard on himself. You hear a voice that wants to tell the truth even when the truth is awkward.
Watch how he mixes memory with comment. A scene from youth is followed by a general remark about marriage, class or the way young people are raised. That habit is typical of Wells, who could not tell a private story without asking what it said about society. The result feels part confession and part essay, and it sets the questions the rest of the book will take up.
That’s 1 of 4 key points.
The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
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Who’s who
- Stephen Stratton
- Stephen Stratton narrates his life, looking back on his love for Mary and the demands of personal responsibility.
- Mary
- Mary is Stephen's clever, strong-willed love, whose wishes conflict with the pressures of family, money and marriage.
- Oliver Justin
- Oliver Justin is the wealthy man Mary marries, offering her material security within a settled social world.
About this edition
Every format is free to start, and print and large print are at cost.
- LengthAbout 107,000 words
- Reading timeAbout 7 h 10 min
- Listening time11 h 55 min
- FormatseBook, large-print eBook, audiobook, 15-minute summary
- LanguagesEnglish and 12 other languages
Questions about Los amigos apasionados
What is The Passionate Friends about?
It is a novel in which Stephen Stratton looks back on his life and his love for Mary. It follows their bond, her marriage to another man and the conflict between passion, duty and social rules.
Who wrote The Passionate Friends and when?
H. G. Wells wrote it, and it was published in 1913. It comes from his period of social novels, written before the First World War, when marriage and women's roles were widely debated.
Is The Passionate Friends a science fiction novel?
No. Although Wells is best known for science fiction, this is a realistic novel of love and society set in his own time, with a strong strand of reflection on how people ought to live.
Who tells the story in The Passionate Friends?
Stephen Stratton tells it in the first person, writing as a man looking back. His voice mixes memory, confession and comment on marriage, class and the society around him.
Is The Passionate Friends hard to read?
No. It is easy to start because Stephen Stratton tells his own story in a frank, personal voice, as if talking to a close friend. The plot is a clear love story with Mary at its heart, so you always know whose life you are following.