23 h 35 minAudiobook11 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at costPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What if the life you are raised to want leaves no room for the person you hope to become?
In Henry Kitchell Webster’s The Real Adventure, a woman questions the future her upbringing prepares her to accept. Marriage and a respectable place in society are meant to give her life its shape. But she wants more than a role, and she begins to test the answers others offer.
Published in 1916, the novel explores women’s choices in marriage, work and public life. At its heart is a bond between people with different needs and different freedoms. As the heroine seeks a path of her own, money, reputation and loneliness give her questions a weight she cannot simply wish away.
What you’ll discover
- A life beyond expectations Follow a heroine who asks whether the role she inherits can ever be enough.
- Marriage under close scrutiny Consider what a shared life means when two people have different needs and freedoms.
- The cost of independence See how money, reputation and loneliness complicate the search for a life of her own.
- Society’s quiet pressure Explore the expectations that prepare a woman for marriage rather than a path she chooses.
- An adventure within Discover an idea of adventure rooted in understanding yourself and living by what you find.
Who will love it
You will enjoy this if you like a lively story about marriage and ambition, sharp talk at dinner tables, the backstage world of the theater, and a heroine who learns by doing.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A girl who writes down the joke
- A streetcar, a storm, and a stranger
- Love comes fast and lightly
- A house with nothing inside
- The branch that was cut off
- The only remedy
- Alone, on North Clark Street
- What the story is really about
Who’s who
- Rose StantonA glowing, athletic young woman who has never had to earn anything and who wants, above all, to become her husband's true friend.
- Rodney AldrichA brilliant lawyer who prizes freedom and hard work, and who loves Rose but cannot yet share his working life with her.
- Portia StantonRose's older sister, an interior decorator who gave up her own hopes for her family and tells Rose she must not fail.
- Frederica WhitneyRodney's beautiful, clever sister, who guides Rose into society and believes in keeping up appearances.
- John GalbraithA theater director risen from the London streets, who sees Rose's talent and falls in love with her.
- HarrietRodney's other sister, a polished, practical countess who takes charge of the twins and holds that appearances come first.
- James RandolphA brilliant doctor of the mind whose theory of the short circuit shakes Rose, and whose own marriage is in trouble.
- Miss GibbonsA sharp, dry milliner in a small Illinois town who gives Rose work and shelter when no one else will.
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- Audiobook
- 23 h 35 min, complete, read by Lucas Linden.
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas in about 11 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 La verdadera aventura 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.
La verdadera aventura
by Henry Kitchell Webster · 1916
A university girl who grapples with a streetcar conductor marries the man who gets off the car for her, then leaves him.
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In short
The Real Adventure is a novel by Henry Kitchell Webster, set in Chicago and New York in the years just before the First World War. It follows Rosalind Stanton, called Rose, a university student with a gift for making everyone look at her, and the man she marries after one stormy night on a streetcar.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A girl who writes down the joke
The story opens in a Chicago lecture hall in March. A professor is teaching the French Revolution, and he jokes that young girls should never marry a man with a passion for principles. Rose Stanton, who has not taken a single note all hour, writes the joke down with a perfectly serious face.
Rose is about twenty, with chestnut hair, a wide mouth, and a way of making everyone else in the room fade. Her mother, Naomi Rutledge Stanton, is a well-known writer and speaker for women's rights, and raised her children on Rousseau. After class, Rose is met by Harry, a gigantic football halfback who has followed her about for six months.
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What is The Real Adventure about?
It follows Rose Stanton, a Chicago student who marries a lawyer, Rodney Aldrich, after a chance meeting on a streetcar. She leaves him to earn her own way and prove she can be his friend as well as his wife.
When was The Real Adventure written and where is it set?
Henry Kitchell Webster wrote it in the early twentieth century, and it is set mainly in Chicago and New York in the years around 1912 to 1915, with a touch of the First World War.
Who is Rose Stanton in the novel?
Rose is the young heroine. She is athletic and charming, and she is brought up by a mother who writes about women's rights. After her marriage, she wants a real share in her husband's work.
The author
Henry Kitchell Webster
1875–1932 · American novelist
Henry Kitchell Webster was an American author born in Evanston, Illinois, in 1875. He wrote novels and short stories, including The Corbin Necklace and The Real Adventure, published in 1916. He also wrote Calumet K with Samuel Merwin in 1901. He died in Evanston in 1932.
More by Henry Kitchell Webster
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