Résumé
Résumé de Le Dynamiteur
À qui s’adresse-t-il ?
For readers who love Stevenson's lighter side, nested stories and Victorian satire, with false names, dynamite plots and strangers spinning tales in London.
De quoi parle ce livre ?
The Dynamiter is a comic adventure published in 1885 as a sequel to New Arabian Nights. Robert Louis Stevenson wrote it with his wife, Fanny Van de Grift Stevenson, and the book carries both their names. It appeared when Irish extremists were setting off dynamite in British cities, and the authors answered the fear of the day with farce, not with sermons.
What you get is a tangle of tales inside a larger frame. Young Englishmen drift through London, meet strangers with stories to tell, and find themselves mixed up with plots they only half understand. The book is playful, ironic and quick. Let us start with the way it is built, because the structure is the first thing to grasp.
Dans ce résumé
- 1A comic answer to a real panicFree
- 2Three idle young men meet a mystery
- 3Stories inside stories
- 4Deception, irony and a shared pen
Point clé 1 sur 4
A comic answer to a real panic
The book belongs to the years of the dynamite campaign, when bombs in London made ordinary readers fear that any stranger might be a plotter. Stevenson and his wife chose to treat that fear as material for a romp. The word dynamiter in the title points straight at the headlines of the day.
The book is a sequel to New Arabian Nights, the earlier collection in which Stevenson had turned London into a city of strange adventure. Here he returns to the same idea. Ordinary streets, lodgings and railway carriages hide plots, disguises and odd coincidences.
The tone matters from the start. The authors do not take the conspirators or the crowd seriously, and they do not ask you to. The book leans on irony, and it wants you to smile at fear as much as feel it.
That’s 1 of 4 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
Questions about Le Dynamiteur
What is The Dynamiter about?
It is a comic adventure about young Englishmen who meet strange people and hear many stories in a London shaken by fear of dynamite plots. Deception and mistaken guesses drive the action.
Who wrote The Dynamiter?
Robert Louis Stevenson wrote it with his wife, Fanny Van de Grift Stevenson. It appeared in 1885 as a sequel to his earlier book, New Arabian Nights.
Is The Dynamiter a true story?
No, it is fiction. It was written in response to the real dynamite attacks in British cities in the early 1880s, but its characters and plots are invented for comedy.
Is The Dynamiter a sequel?
Yes. It is also known as More New Arabian Nights. It continues the idea of the earlier collection, treating modern London as a place of strange adventure.
Is The Dynamiter hard to read?
The prose is clear. It is easier if you treat it as farce.