4 h 29 minAudiobook10 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at cost
Audiobook edition · 4 h 29 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
Behind tidy gardens and polite dinners, old values and new ideas make uneasy neighbours.
In Beyond the City, Arthur Conan Doyle turns from detection to the red brick villas of London's growing suburbs. Neighbouring families bring different habits and outlooks to this small world. Young people look for love, older people hold to familiar ways, and neighbours keep a watchful eye on one another.
Courtship raises questions that good manners cannot settle: who will care for whom, and who will be allowed to? Beneath the gentle comedy, Doyle explores changing ideas about women's roles, leisure and family life. The stakes are personal: how to live, whom to marry, and how to treat people whose views differ from your own.
What you’ll discover
- Life beyond London Step among villas, gardens and dinner tables where ordinary families reveal a changing England.
- Neighbours with different outlooks Watch settled habits meet new ideas in the close quarters of suburban life.
- Love under watchful eyes Follow questions of courtship where private hopes meet the expectations of polite society.
- Comedy with a social edge Enjoy Doyle's light touch as humour opens questions about marriage, family and women's roles.
- Doyle away from detection Discover a quieter side of the writer through ordinary lives rather than crime and adventure.
Who will love it
Readers who enjoy gentle comedy, lively dialogue, and Victorian domestic life, and who like to see a clever author of detective tales try his hand at romance, family loyalty, and good-humored satire.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- Two old maids watch a strange arrival
- A visit that ends on the sofa
- Three households and a shared lawn
- Mrs. Westmacott wins over the Admiral
- Two proposals, one clumsy and one earnest
- The sisters plot to save their father
- The household turns upside down
- A crash in the City and the Admiral's sacrifice
- What the story is about and how it is told
Who’s who
- Mrs. WestmacottA muscular, cigarette-smoking widow who travels widely, keeps a snake, and campaigns for women's rights wherever she settles.
- Charles WestmacottHer big, kind, slow-witted nephew, who hates Browning and loves athletics, and who hopes to win Ida and a new life in Texas.
- Admiral Hay DenverA lean retired naval officer, proud and old-fashioned, who loves his wife and son and will do anything to protect his family's honor.
- Harold DenverThe admiral's son, a young stockbroker who hates the money chase and hopes that Clara's love will keep him on a cleaner path.
- Doctor Balthazar WalkerA widowed physician, fond of science and quiet, who is drawn toward his lively neighbor and sees his orderly home upended.
- Clara WalkerThe serious elder daughter, who runs her father's house and fears he will marry the wrong woman, while she quietly loves Harold.
- Ida WalkerThe merry younger daughter, quick and mischievous, who invents the plot to cure her father and is courted by Charles.
- Miss Bertha and Miss Monica WilliamsTwo shy old sisters who watch every event from their cottage window and wish they had never sold their field.
Formats and delivery
- eBook
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- Large-print eBook
- The same book in bigger, clearer type, from the first page.
- Audiobook
- 4 h 29 min, complete, read by Lucas Linden.
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas in about 10 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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Read and hear Más allá de la ciudad in 25 languages and switch at any time. Or read two side by side, paragraph by paragraph: the way to learn a language with a book you love.
Más allá de la ciudad
by Arthur Conan Doyle · 1892
A snake, a tandem tricycle and a campaign for women's votes upend three new villas in a quiet London suburb.
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In short
Beyond the City is a comic novel of suburban life by Arthur Conan Doyle, best known for Sherlock Holmes. It is set in a new corner of south London called the Wilderness, where three brand new villas stand across a road from two old maids in their cottage.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
Two old maids watch a strange arrival
The story opens in the Wilderness, a new neighborhood of south London. Two little old ladies, Miss Bertha and Miss Monica Williams, watch from behind their lace curtains as a cab pulls up at number three. The cabman is piled high with boxing gloves, Indian clubs, dumbbells, golf clubs, and a cricket bag.
A big young man steps out with a bulldog puppy, then a tall, handsome, older woman springs out unaided. She wears a short blue skirt and a man's felt hat. When the cabman demands more than she wishes to pay, she shakes him by the neckerchief and bangs his head against his own cab. The sisters sit speechless.
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What is Beyond the City about?
It follows three families who move into new villas in a London suburb. A reforming widow, a retired admiral, and a doctor and his daughters argue, court, plot, and help each other when a City swindle threatens one family's honor.
Who is Mrs. Westmacott in Beyond the City?
She is a strong-minded widow who travels the world, keeps a rock snake named Eliza, rides a tandem tricycle, and sets up branches of the Emancipation Guild. She is generous and fearless, and the neighbors find her unforgettable.
When was Beyond the City written and is it a true story?
Arthur Conan Doyle wrote it in the late Victorian period, and it is a work of fiction. It reflects real debates of its day about women's votes and work, and the pressures of London's Stock Exchange.
The author
Arthur Conan Doyle
1859–1930 · British detective novelist
Arthur Conan Doyle was a British writer and physician born in Edinburgh in 1859. He practised medicine in England and wrote novels, short stories and histories. His Sherlock Holmes stories began with A Study in Scarlet in 1887. He also wrote The Lost World in 1912. He died in Crowborough, England, in 1930.
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