Story summary
Trama e riassunto di Irene Iddesleigh
- 8 min di lettura
- 8 parts
- Audio a breve
A bride in dark green walks to the altar hating her groom, and a locked room waits at Dunfern Mansion.
3 months free · unlimited eBooks, audiobooks and summaries, and print and large print at cost
Nothing to pay today · Ti invieremo un’email prima dell’addebito · Annulla online in due clic
Irene Iddesleigh in breve
Riassunto: 8 min di lettura
- Tempo di lettura
- Circa 2 h 10 min1 h 45 min fast, 2 h 35 min slow
- Durata
- 31.100 parole
- Livello nella biblioteca
- Impegnativo long sentences, a rich vocabulary
- Prima pubblicazione
- 1897by Amanda McKittrick Ros
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). Quanto tempo ci vuole per leggere i classici · Aggiornato
Gratis per 3 mesi
Ottieni il riassunto completo di Irene Iddesleigh, gratis
- 200.000+ classici in eBook, audiolibri e riassunti in 15 minuti, e libri cartacei e a caratteri grandi al costo di stampa
- Fino a 5 lettori in casa tua con un solo piano
Irene Iddesleigh in short
Irene Iddesleigh is the story of one marriage that begins in a lie and spreads grief to everyone it touches. A lonely baronet falls in love with an adopted beauty. She loves her tutor, accepts the match to please her guardians, and hides her heart behind flattery.
What Irene Iddesleigh is about
What would you do if the home you were promised for life turned out to be a cell? In Irene Iddesleigh, a beautiful young woman marries a rich baronet while loving another man, and her lie shapes every life around her. Her wedding dress is dark green, not white, and a locked room waits inside Dunfern Mansion.
Amanda McKittrick Ros, an Irish writer who died in 1939, tells this Victorian melodrama in nineteen short chapters. Sentences stretch across the page, and the narrator stops again and again to speak to you. You get a plot you can follow and a voice you will not mistake for anyone else's.
A chi è rivolto. You will love this book if you enjoy Victorian melodrama, Gothic houses with locked rooms, tangled love triangles, and language piled high with ornament and feeling.
The story in 8 parts
Key idea 1 · free to read
A gloomy mansion and a bachelor who waits
The story opens with Irene walking alone on the beach, then describes Dunfern Mansion, a house more than three hundred years old, surrounded by ivy-covered walls and entered through an enormous iron gate. Yet some of the finest rooms stay locked, and when guests ask about them, they meet silence.
The owner is Sir John Dunfern, forty years old and set in his bachelor ways. Only the thought that his family's birthright might pass to strangers makes him think of marriage at all.
One night a note arrives. Lord and Lady Dilworth invite him to a ball. Their adopted daughter, Irene Iddesleigh, is known as the Southern Beauty. Irene enters last, in snowy white with a single diamond necklace. The room titters with envy, and Sir John decides at once that she is the woman of the castle's perfect portrait. Three weeks later a second invitation comes, and he needs no time to think.
He rides home dreaming of a house made bright by a virtuous wife. But the narrator tells us what he cannot see. Irene hides her true feelings and has decided to play the clever coquette.
A lonely house and a lonely man set the stage for a love that begins with one side hidden.
- 2Inizia gratis per leggere
Courtship draws jealousy into the garden
Sir John now visits Dilworth Castle often, and each visit makes him fonder of Irene.
- 3Inizia gratis per leggere
A wedding in green and a house ruined
In the last week before the wedding, Irene speaks aloud to her bedroom walls.
- 4Inizia gratis per leggere
Silence, spies and a ring in a jewel case
At Dunfern Mansion the marriage chills after its first few weeks.
- 5Inizia gratis per leggere
A locked room and a plan to escape
Sir John tells Rachel everything and orders her to fetch a rusty key.
- 6Inizia gratis per leggere
Deceit is the engine that drives the story
Almost every chapter turns on someone hiding something.
- 7Inizia gratis per leggere
Money, rank and the price of a loveless marriage
Beneath the love story runs a question about wealth and status.
- 8Inizia gratis per leggere
A voice that speaks to you across the page
The way the book is told is half the reason people remember it.
Read all 8 key ideas now
3 months free, then 0,14 USD a day: unlimited eBooks, audiobooks and summaries, and print and large print at cost.
- Nothing to pay today
- Ti invieremo un’email prima dell’addebito
- Annulla online in due clic
Characters, plot and themes
Main characters
- Irene Iddesleigh An adopted beauty who marries a baronet while loving her tutor, and who hides her true heart behind clever answers.
- Sir John Dunfern A forty-year-old bachelor and owner of Dunfern Mansion who longs for a loving wife and an heir to keep his family's name.
- Oscar Otwell Irene's poor, learned tutor, who loves her in secret and writes letters that will shape her fate.
- Lord and Lady Dilworth The kindly but extravagant guardians who adopt Irene and urge her toward a rich marriage before their own financial ruin.
- Rachel Hyde The watchful housekeeper of Dunfern Mansion who resents the new mistress and carries every report to her master.
- Marjory Mason Irene's loyal maid, who will risk everything to stay close to her mistress and help her.
- Hugh Dunfern The son of Sir John and Irene, raised away from his mother and taught what his father believes about her.
How it ends (spoiler)
Oscar and Irene flee to America and marry, but poverty and drink turn Oscar violent. Irene escapes to a post as governess, and Oscar leaves a farewell letter and seems to drown himself in a lake. Irene returns to Kent as a widow, hoping to see her son. She finds that Sir John has died after telling Hugh the whole story. Hugh orders her from the grounds of Dunfern Mansion. She dies alone in the old summerhouse, and Hugh does not mourn her.
The whole book is coming to your plan
The full text of Irene Iddesleigh opens soon. Keep this summary as a file today.
Paperback, hardcover and large print, printed for you at cost, are on their way. Email me when it is printed
Domande su Irene Iddesleigh
What is Irene Iddesleigh about?
It follows an adopted young woman who marries a wealthy baronet, Sir John Dunfern, while loving her tutor. Her concealed feelings lead to a locked room, a daring escape, and consequences for everyone around her.
Who is Oscar Otwell in Irene Iddesleigh?
Oscar Otwell is Irene's tutor, a learned and poor young man who loves her. His letters and his role in her fate drive much of the plot, as Sir John discovers in the jewel case.
Is Irene Iddesleigh easy to follow?
The plot moves in clear steps through nineteen short chapters, with letters, speeches and scenes that stand out. The narrator speaks directly to the reader, so it is lively and even more rewarding when read aloud.
What is the main message of Irene Iddesleigh?
The book shows how hidden feelings and a marriage without trust bring suffering to everyone involved. It also argues that wealth and rank cannot replace honesty between husband and wife.
Who wrote Irene Iddesleigh and what kind of book is it?
Amanda McKittrick Ros, an Irish writer who died in 1939, wrote it. It is a Victorian Gothic romance and melodrama, full of mansions, secrets and letters, told in a famously ornate style.
Cita questa edizione
Ros, Amanda McKittrick. Irene Iddesleigh. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/irene-iddesleigh.
Ros, A. M. (2026). Irene Iddesleigh. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/irene-iddesleigh (Original work published 1897)
Ros, Amanda McKittrick. Irene Iddesleigh. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/irene-iddesleigh.
@book{ros2026irene,
author = {Ros, Amanda McKittrick},
title = {Irene Iddesleigh},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/irene-iddesleigh},
note = {First published 1897}
}
Crime and Punishment
Wuthering Heights
Pride and Prejudice
The Iliad
Romeo and Juliet
The Picture of Dorian GrayGratis per 3 mesi
Ottieni il riassunto completo di Irene Iddesleigh, gratis
- 200.000+ classici in eBook, audiolibri e riassunti in 15 minuti, e libri cartacei e a caratteri grandi al costo di stampa
- Fino a 5 lettori in casa tua con un solo piano
