1 h 2 minAudiobook7 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 would you sacrifice to see a world no human eye has ever reached?
In New York, young Linley spends his inheritance on microscopes and instruments, but no lens can satisfy him. He wants to look deeper into the world of the very small than anyone before him. In The Diamond Lens, Fitz James O'Brien lets this charming, unreliable narrator draw you into a passion that leaves little room for other people.
Then a spirit circle offers an unexpected path. Through a medium, the supposed spirit of microscope maker Anton van Leeuwenhoek tells Linley how to make a perfect lens. But the secret requires a diamond far beyond his means. His search brings microscope science and spiritualism together, while Gothic darkness gathers around the question of what discovery might cost.
What you’ll discover
- An eye for the invisible Follow Linley's hunger to see what ordinary lenses cannot reveal.
- A voice worth questioning Listen as a charming narrator tells his story, and consider what his obsession hides.
- Science meets the spirit circle Enter a strange search where instruments and messages from the dead share the same purpose.
- The price of knowledge Face the uneasy question of what a seeker owes other people.
- Wonder edged with dread Discover an early science fiction tale whose fascination with hidden worlds carries a Gothic shadow.
Who will love it
For readers who love early science fiction, Gothic tales and unreliable narrators, and anyone who enjoys a short, vivid adventure where scientific discovery meets spiritualism, obsession and guilt.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A boy who dreams of the invisible
- The best lenses are not good enough
- A spirit offers the secret
- The price of the stone
- A world inside a drop of water
- Obsession, distance and what the tale means
Who’s who
- LinleyThe young narrator, a gifted microscopist who spends his inheritance on instruments and longs to see deeper into the world of the very small than anyone before him.
- AnimulaA graceful being Linley sees in the microscopic world, whom he names and grows to love as he watches her.
- Anton van LeeuwenhoekThe seventeenth century Dutch microscope maker, whose spirit is said to speak at a seance and tell Linley how to make a perfect lens.
- The mediumThe woman at the spirit circle through whom the message from Leeuwenhoek appears to come, and who sets Linley on his path.
- The owner of the diamondA dealer in precious stones who holds the great diamond Linley needs, and whose fate shapes the dark turn of the story.
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- Hardcover
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- Large print paperback
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- Large print hardcover
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La lente di diamante
by Fitz James O’Brien · 1858
Linley pursues a hidden world in a drop of water, risking his moral limits in his hunger for knowledge.
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From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A boy who dreams of the invisible
The story opens with Linley telling us about himself. Since boyhood he has been drawn to the microscope. As a child he spends hours staring at drops of water, scraps of leaf and the wings of insects, and he feels that each new view is a door opening onto a secret country.
His father, who has little patience for such dreams, wants him to take up a practical trade. Linley has other plans. He studies science, reads everything he can find on optics and the natural world, and grows more sure that the greatest discoveries lie in the tiniest things.
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What is The Diamond Lens about?
It is about Linley, a young microscope enthusiast in New York who becomes obsessed with making a perfect lens. He follows a spirit's instructions to build one from a giant diamond, and it shows him a living world in a drop of water.
When was The Diamond Lens written?
Fitz James O'Brien published it in the Atlantic Monthly in 1858. It is a work of fiction, though it uses real microscope science and the spiritualism fashionable in America in that decade.
Is The Diamond Lens science fiction?
Yes. It is counted among the early American science fiction stories. It mixes ideas about optics and microscopic life with seances and Gothic horror, so it also feels like a tale of the supernatural.
The author
Fitz James O'Brien
1828–1862 · Irish-American short story writer
Fitz James O’Brien (1828–1862) was an Irish-American writer of short stories, poems, and plays. He lived in Ireland and London before moving to New York in 1852. His story The Diamond Lens appeared in 1858. He served in the Union army during the American Civil War and died in 1862.
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