Story summary
Samenvatting van De dynamitard
- 8 min. leestijd
- 10 parts
- Binnenkort te beluisteren
Three broke friends vow to grab the next adventure London offers, and each lands among dynamiters.
3 months free · unlimited eBooks, audiobooks and summaries, and print and large print at cost
Nothing to pay today · We mailen je voordat je betaalt · Online opzeggen in twee klikken
De dynamitard in het kort
Samenvatting: 8 min leestijd
- Leestijd
- Ongeveer 4 h 55 min3 h 55 min fast, 5 h 50 min slow
- Lengte
- 70.300 woorden
- Bibliotheekniveau
- Gemiddeld longer sentences, everyday words
- Voor het eerst verschenen
- 1885by Robert Louis Stevenson; Fanny Van de Grift Stevenson
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). Hoelang het duurt om de klassiekers te lezen · Bijgewerkt
3 maanden gratis
Ontvang de volledige samenvatting van De dynamitard, gratis
- 200.000+ klassiekers als e-books, luisterboeken en samenvattingen in 15 minuten, en gedrukte boeken, ook in grote letters, tegen drukkosten
- Tot 5 lezers bij je thuis met één plan
De dynamitard in short
The Dynamiter is a comic thriller built from nested stories. Three idle gentlemen vow in a Soho cigar shop to welcome whatever adventure comes next. Challoner is led across a waking city by a lady with a tale of Mormon horror.
What De dynamitard is about
What would you do if a stranger in distress asked you to walk her across a sleeping city? In The Dynamiter, three penniless young Londoners promise each other to say yes to the very next adventure that offers itself. They keep their word, and it costs them dearly.
Robert Louis Stevenson wrote this comic novel in the 1880s with his wife, Fanny Van de Grift Stevenson. It is a second series of New Arabian Nights, set while bombs were in the news. The authors laugh at that violence. You get three linked adventures, each full of tales inside tales.
Voor wie is het?. Readers who enjoy comic mysteries, nested tales in the Arabian Nights tradition, Victorian London and Stevenson's sly, playful voice will love this book.
The story in 10 parts
Key idea 1 · free to read
Three idle men promise to chase adventure
The story opens in Leicester Square, where Paul Somerset meets an old friend, Challoner, who has fallen on hard times. Both men have one hundred pounds left and no notion what to do with it. They slip into the Bohemian Cigar Divan in Rupert Street, Soho, a small shop kept by a calm tobacconist named Godall.
A third young man, Desborough, wanders in for tobacco. He too owns a hundred pounds and is waiting for something to turn up. Godall tells them that a skill is worth more than money. None of them has one.
Somerset opens the newspaper to an advertisement and says detection is the one trade fit for a gentleman of the world. He needs only Chance. Challoner scoffs, but Somerset makes them promise anyway. Each must welcome the next adventure and bring the story back to Godall.
A promise to say yes to chance is what drives every adventure that follows.
- 2Begin gratis met lezen
A frightened lady leads Challoner through the dawn
Challoner's adventure begins on foot.
- 3Begin gratis met lezen
A Mormon doctor builds an elixir in the desert
The lady calls her tale the Story of the Destroying Angel, and it is pure frontier melodrama.
- 4Begin gratis met lezen
Challoner carries money to Glasgow and a surprise
When the story ends, the lady grows pale at the mention of police.
- 5Begin gratis met lezen
Somerset meets a spirited old lady with seven mansions
Somerset spends a whole day offering himself to fortune and is ignored.
- 6Begin gratis met lezen
A very odd lodger moves into the Superfluous Mansion
Somerset settles into the empty mansion, sleeping on an iron bed in the library.
- 7Begin gratis met lezen
Zero argues for terror and fears the mob
Zero is a bad dynamiter and a fine talker.
- 8Begin gratis met lezen
Desborough loves a Cuban beauty with a tragic past
Harry Desborough lives in Queen Square, next to the Children's Hospital.
- 9Begin gratis met lezen
Every tale in the book is a performance
Each adventure rests on a story told by a speaker who wants something.
- 10Begin gratis met lezen
Stevenson frames violence with comedy and decency
The book is built like a set of Arabian Nights tales in modern London.
Read all 10 key ideas now
3 months free, then USD 0,14 a day: unlimited eBooks, audiobooks and summaries, and print and large print at cost.
- Nothing to pay today
- We mailen je voordat je betaalt
- Online opzeggen in twee klikken
Characters, plot and themes
Main characters
- Paul Somerset A talkative, dreamy young barrister who loves theories and adventure, and who sets the detective bargain in motion.
- Edward Challoner A portly, easygoing gentleman who hates fuss, yet is led by pity and politeness into a very strange errand.
- Harry Desborough A handsome, simple, kindhearted young man who is sure nothing will ever happen to him and wants only to be useful.
- Mr. Godall The wise tobacconist of Rupert Street, who is secretly the exiled Prince Florizel of Bohemia, and who listens to every tale.
- Mrs. Luxmore A lively, quarrelsome old lady who owns eight houses, loves lawsuits and lends Somerset one of her houses.
- Zero A boastful lodger who works as a dynamiter, wants fame for his explosions and is terrified of crowds.
- Teresa Valdevia A Cuban beauty in Bloomsbury who tells Desborough a tragic story and asks him to carry a box for her.
How it ends (spoiler)
Teresa turns out to be Clara Luxmore, the lady Challoner met, and the brown box holds a bomb that fails with a hiss. Zero celebrates the mansion's destruction as a triumph, regrets its premature timing, and Somerset insists on sending him away by train. Zero dies when the dynamite in his bag explodes at a bookstall. Months later Clara, now married to Harry, is reconciled with her mother through Godall, who is Prince Florizel. Somerset, working in the cigar shop, is forgiven by Mrs. Luxmore.
The whole book is coming to your plan
The full text of De dynamitard 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
Vragen over De dynamitard
What is The Dynamiter about?
It follows three penniless young Londoners who promise to accept the next adventure that offers itself. Each meets a scheming stranger, hears a tall tale and is drawn into a plot involving bombs, lies and sudden danger.
Who is Mr. Godall in The Dynamiter?
Godall is the polite tobacconist of the Bohemian Cigar Divan in Rupert Street, Soho. He is really Prince Florizel of Bohemia, a once powerful ruler who now lives quietly in London and listens to the young men's stories.
Is The Dynamiter a funny book?
Yes, in the sense that it is a comedy. The authors mock political terror and treat their bomb makers as bunglers. The narrative voice is witty, the dialogue lively, and the scenes move quickly from one comic crisis to the next.
What is the main message of The Dynamiter?
The book suggests that violent political schemes are ridiculous and cruel, however grand their language, and that ordinary honor and kindness are worth more. It also shows how easily a charming story can lead a person astray.
Verwijs naar deze uitgave
Stevenson, Robert Louis, and Fanny Van de Grift Stevenson. The Dynamiter. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-dynamiter.
Stevenson, R. L., & Stevenson, F. V. D. G. (2026). The dynamiter. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-dynamiter (Original work published 1885)
Stevenson, Robert Louis, and Fanny Van de Grift Stevenson. The Dynamiter. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-dynamiter.
@book{stevenson2026dynamiter,
author = {Stevenson, Robert Louis and Stevenson, Fanny Van de Grift},
title = {The Dynamiter},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-dynamiter},
note = {First published 1885}
}
Crime and Punishment
Wuthering Heights
Pride and Prejudice
The Iliad
Romeo and Juliet
The Picture of Dorian Gray3 maanden gratis
Ontvang de volledige samenvatting van De dynamitard, gratis
- 200.000+ klassiekers als e-books, luisterboeken en samenvattingen in 15 minuten, en gedrukte boeken, ook in grote letters, tegen drukkosten
- Tot 5 lezers bij je thuis met één plan
