17 h 25 minAudiobook2 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 your need to do the right thing blinds you to the harm you cause?
At Saddle Meadows, Pierre Glendinning lives among wealth, affection, and cherished images of his family’s past. His widowed mother takes fierce pride in him. Then Isabel Banford arrives, claiming to be his father’s unacknowledged daughter, and unsettles everything Pierre believes about the people he loves.
Pierre resolves to protect Isabel while shielding his mother from disgrace. But his sense of duty reaches beyond what he can know for certain. Leaving the country estate for the city, he faces poverty and tries to support himself through writing. In Herman Melville’s Pierre; or The Ambiguities, sacrifice and pride become hard to tell apart.
What you’ll discover
- A family under strain Isabel’s claim places a cherished father’s image against a troubling possibility Pierre cannot ignore.
- The danger of certainty Follow a young man whose determination to act nobly outruns his understanding of others.
- Love tangled with possession Explore the uneasy boundary between caring for someone and defending your own ideal.
- Security left behind Travel with Pierre from inherited comfort to city poverty and the uncertain work of writing.
- Loyalty at a cost See how Pierre’s choices unsettle his proud mother and bring pain to his fiancée, Lucy Tartan.
Who will love it
For readers drawn to troubled family histories, morally uncertain choices, and intense nineteenth-century fiction, Pierre’s disastrous idealism is especially compelling.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
Who’s who
- Pierre GlendinningA wealthy young man stakes his future on protecting Isabel and defending his own idea of moral duty.
- Isabel BanfordA woman who claims to be Pierre’s half sister unsettles his faith in his father and family.
- Lucy TartanPierre’s fiancée faces the pain and confusion caused by his sudden declaration that he has married Isabel.
- Mrs. GlendinningPierre’s proud mother expects him to uphold the family’s standing and the future she has imagined for him.
- Moral certaintyPierre’s desire to act nobly repeatedly outruns his knowledge of other people and the consequences of his choices.
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Pierre o las ambigüedades
by Herman Melville · 1852
Pierre risks his future to protect a woman claiming to be his half sister, putting family loyalty and love at stake.
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From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
Pierre Glendinning lives at Saddle Meadows, his family’s country estate, surrounded by wealth, affection, and a carefully guarded picture of the past. His widowed mother takes fierce pride in him. His dead father stands in his imagination as an example of goodness. Pierre is engaged to Lucy Tartan, whose beauty and gentleness seem to promise a happy future. He has little reason to doubt either his family or himself.
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What is Pierre; or The Ambiguities about?
Herman Melville’s novel follows Pierre Glendinning, a wealthy young man who tries to protect a woman claiming to be his half sister. To shelter her and preserve his father’s reputation, he pretends to marry her, setting his moral ideals against family loyalty, love, and practical survival.
Is Isabel really Pierre’s sister?
Isabel tells Pierre that she is his father’s daughter, but the novel does not give readers a secure basis for treating her claim as established fact. Pierre’s willingness to commit himself despite that uncertainty is central to the book’s treatment of belief and responsibility.
Why does Pierre pretend to marry Isabel?
Pierre wants to give Isabel protection without publicly exposing his father’s possible infidelity. Calling her his wife seems to let him fulfill both duties. But this solution requires deception, wounds Lucy, and places Pierre’s relationship with his mother under unbearable strain.
The author
Herman Melville
1819–1891 · American novelist and poet
Herman Melville (1819–1891) was an American novelist, short-story writer, and poet. He was born and died in New York City and also lived in Massachusetts. He published Moby-Dick in 1851, Pierre in 1852, and The Confidence-Man in 1857. His unfinished Billy Budd was published after his death, in 1924.
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