Story summary
Samenvatting van Beste Brutus
- 9 min. leestijd
- 9 parts
- Binnenkort te beluisteren
On Midsummer Eve, a garden becomes a wood where Lob's guests meet the second chance they have longed for.
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Beste Brutus in het kort
Samenvatting: 9 min leestijd
- Leestijd
- Ongeveer 1 h 25 min1 h 10 min fast, 1 h 45 min slow
- Lengte
- 20.700 woorden
- Bibliotheekniveau
- Gemiddeld longer sentences, everyday words
- Voor het eerst verschenen
- 1922by J. M. Barrie
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). Hoelang het duurt om de klassiekers te lezen · Bijgewerkt
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Beste Brutus in short
Dear Brutus is a three-act fantasy about a house party on Midsummer Eve. Lob, a tiny and very old host, has invited guests who mostly long for a second chance. When the garden turns into a wood, they walk in and find the lives they might have had, with new names and new partners.
What Beste Brutus is about
What if you could go back to the crossroads where your life took a wrong turn and walk it again? Dear Brutus begins on a Midsummer Eve in an English country house, where eight guests are about to find out. Beyond the dark drawing room, a moonlit garden waits, as quiet as a cat.
J. M. Barrie wrote this stage play after Peter Pan, with the same fairy-tale feeling but aimed at grown-ups. The host is Lob, a tiny, ancient bachelor who seems to be Puck grown old. You will meet his guests and the wood that is never in the same place twice. You will not hear how it ends.
Voor wie is het?. This is for readers who love fairy-tale stage plays, witty talk, and big questions about regret and second chances. It suits anyone who enjoys Barrie's warm humour and moonlit magic.
The story in 9 parts
Key idea 1 · free to read
A dark room and a waiting garden
Barrie opens with stage directions that read like a story. The curtain rises so quietly that a mouse would not be disturbed. The two main characters, he says, are Darkness and Light. The room is dark, the garden is full of moonlight, and the two sit still, like old enemies about to come to grips.
Then a party of guests steps into the dark, groping for a switch. Barrie tells us with a wink that they will grope through the dark again before the night is over, and far more terribly. When the light comes on, the garden seems to step back, as if beaten. But it is only waiting.
The house belongs to Lob. There are five ladies, and Barrie sketches each with affection and a sting. Mrs Coade is plump, beaming and the nicest. Her husband still fetches footstools for his second wife, because his first was lame, and she has grown a friendly limp to match. Each woman, looking in her mirror, sees a mysterious, interesting face. That small joke carries the play's whole method. He shows us people as they like to see themselves, and then he lets the night begin.
The play opens by showing people just as they think they are.
- 2Begin gratis met lezen
The ladies plot against the butler
As soon as the women leave the dining room, they act.
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Lob, the little host who loves mischief
Now the master of the house arrives.
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Two marriages in trouble
While the others fetch their boots, Barrie shows us two unhappy couples.
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The garden vanishes and a wood appears
The group is ready to leave.
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In the wood, new lives and new names
Act Two takes us into the wood on an enchanted moonlit night, and the guests are strangers to themselves.
- 7Begin gratis met lezen
A father and a daughter under the moon
The most tender scene belongs to the guest who is in the deepest trouble at the start.
- 8Begin gratis met lezen
Are we shaped by luck or by ourselves
Under the fantasy, Dear Brutus asks a plain question.
- 9Begin gratis met lezen
How the play is told and what it leaves
Barrie writes stage directions that are almost a narrator's voice.
Read all 9 key ideas now
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Characters, plot and themes
Main characters
- Lob A tiny, ancient host who tends his flowers lovingly and invites guests to Midsummer week, secretly hoping they will go looking for his wood.
- Matey The butler, a thief with a good heart, who believes one different turn in life would have made him an honest man.
- Will Dearth A once-gifted painter now drinking his days away, who still jokes about himself and carries the memory of the man he used to be.
- Alice Dearth His wife, dark, blunt and fierce, who once loved him wildly and now wishes she had chosen a different life.
- John Purdie A brilliant young barrister who sees himself as a lonely soul and uses fine speeches to excuse his wandering heart.
- Mabel Purdie His gentle, observant wife, who knows exactly what her husband is doing and answers with cool, sharp wit.
- Joanna Trout A merry, quick-tongued guest who falls for a married man and wants to think herself without a flaw.
- Mr and Mrs Coade A devoted old couple, called Coady, who are known for kindness, footstools and one unwritten book on the Feudal System.
How it ends (spoiler)
The guests wake in the drawing room in their evening clothes, remembering the wood bit by bit. Most find they made the same mistakes again, and they slip back into their old habits. Purdie sees his own faults, and Mrs Coade learns her husband was content without her. Dearth wakes to the loss of Margaret, who never existed, and Alice leaves in distress. Lob vanishes from his chair, and the garden returns with the morning.
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Vragen over Beste Brutus
What is Dear Brutus about?
It follows a group of guests at Lob's country house on Midsummer Eve. They enter a wood that gives each of them a second chance, and the play asks whether new circumstances can change who they are.
Where does the title Dear Brutus come from?
It comes from a line of Shakespeare's, in which a man says the fault lies not in our stars but in ourselves. A character quotes it in the play, which tests that idea.
Who is Lob in Dear Brutus?
Lob is the tiny, very old host who invites the guests. The ladies compare him to Puck, or Robin Goodfellow, and he treats flowers like children while he plots mischief.
Who wrote Dear Brutus and when?
J. M. Barrie, the Scottish author of Peter Pan, wrote it as a stage play in the years after Peter Pan. It is a fantasy for adults with comic scenes and tender ones.
Is Dear Brutus easy to read?
Yes, in the sense that it is a play with short speeches, quick jokes and lively stage directions. Barrie's amusing voice guides the reader scene by scene through the three acts.
Verwijs naar deze uitgave
Barrie, J. M. Dear Brutus. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/dear-brutus.
Barrie, J. M. (2026). Dear Brutus. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/dear-brutus (Original work published 1922)
Barrie, J. M. Dear Brutus. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/dear-brutus.
@book{barrie2026dear,
author = {Barrie, J. M.},
title = {Dear Brutus},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/dear-brutus},
note = {First published 1922}
}
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