Story summary
Samenvatting van Het magnifieke onderzoek
- 8 min. leestijd
- 10 parts
- Binnenkort te beluisteren
A wealthy young man enters an Indian jungle unarmed at night to face a fear that has haunted him since childhood.
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
Het magnifieke onderzoek in het kort
Samenvatting: 8 min leestijd
- Leestijd
- Ongeveer 7 h 20 min5 h 50 min fast, 8 h 45 min slow
- Lengte
- 104.800 woorden
- Bibliotheekniveau
- Gemiddeld longer sentences, everyday words
- Voor het eerst verschenen
- 1915by H. G. Wells
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 Het magnifieke onderzoek, 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
Het magnifieke onderzoek in short
The Research Magnificent follows one man's attempt to live a noble life by first facing what holds him back. Benham grows from a frightened schoolboy into a rich young man who studies fear, indulgence, jealousy and prejudice. People can be braver than they think, but fear returns each morning.
What Het magnifieke onderzoek is about
What would you do if a tiger stood twenty yards away in the moonlight, and the only thing you had ever feared more than that tiger was being a coward? That is the scene near the start of The Research Magnificent. A young Englishman named William Porphyry Benham wants to live nobly, and he will test himself against every fear to learn what nobility means.
H. G. Wells wrote this novel just before and during the First World War. His narrator, White, inherits a dead friend's crammed filing cases and builds a story from them. You get adventure, a marriage tale and an argument about how to live.
Voor wie is het?. Readers who love a novel of ideas wrapped in adventure, with jungles, mountains and revolutions. It suits anyone curious about ambition, friendship and marriage.
The story in 10 parts
Key idea 1 · free to read
White opens the papers of his dead friend
The story begins with a promise. White, a journalist and novelist, sits up late in the rooms where his old schoolfellow Benham kept his work. He finds a crammed bureau, ten overstuffed filing cases and a full desk drawer.
Slowly he pieces together the idea that ran through Benham's papers. Benham believed he must live nobly and fully, and he called this the aristocratic life. He did not mean the life of a prince or a peer. He meant clarity and intensity, drawing a flame out of one's own days.
In time only fearlessness and generosity remain of the word aristocratic. Benham also learns that nobility cannot exist alone, so he sets out to find a noble society. That inquiry gives the story its title. Through every page runs one startled question, why on earth are we not noble already.
The first drawer is marked Fear, the First Limitation, and the story starts there. A life can be built around one stubborn question.
- 2Begin gratis met lezen
A schoolboy learns that fear never stays beaten
White first meets Benham at school.
- 3Begin gratis met lezen
He walks into the jungle to meet his tiger
Fear has to be tested in the field, and the notes give two great tests.
- 4Begin gratis met lezen
A boy of two worlds meets his mother's money
The story goes back to the beginning.
- 5Begin gratis met lezen
Billy Prothero argues him into aristocracy
Benham's closest friend is Billy Prothero, a sturdy, untidy boy with a gift for caricature and a love of animals.
- 6Begin gratis met lezen
London swallows a plan and Benham runs away
Benham moves to London with plans for a political career and a dream of a great world state.
- 7Begin gratis met lezen
Amanda arrives with two fighting dogs
On the Downs near Harting, Benham comes across two dogs fighting.
- 8Begin gratis met lezen
A honeymoon turns into a raid on the Balkans
The couple marry, and the honeymoon grows into a long tour through Switzerland, Italy and down the Adriatic coast.
- 9Begin gratis met lezen
Marriage pulls two ways, and Russia calls
In London, Amanda takes a house and charms her way into society.
- 10Begin gratis met lezen
The Research grows into a vision of kingship
The Research expands in the later chapters.
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
- William Porphyry Benham A rich, pale, intense young Englishman who wants to live nobly and sets out to study how, beginning with his own fears.
- White A journalist and novelist, Benham's old schoolfellow, who inherits his friend's papers and tries to shape a story from them.
- Billy Prothero Benham's earthy, clever friend from school and Cambridge, who argues for democracy and appetite and tests every one of Benham's ideas.
- Lady Marayne Benham's bright, charming mother, who loves success and is determined that her son will have a brilliant, balanced career.
- Amanda A quick, brave young woman from South Harting who wants the whole world and marries Benham to see it with him.
- Mrs. Skelmersdale A gentle, shabby, worldly woman whose friendship leads Benham into an affair he deeply regrets.
- Sir Philip Easton A devoted, sensitive young man of fine honor who admires Amanda and likes to bring her books and flowers.
- Reverend Harold Benham Benham's father, a schoolmaster, who struggles to keep a failing school alive and cannot say what he feels to his son.
How it ends (spoiler)
Benham sits at a table in Johannesburg in 1913 and tells White his faith in an Invisible King and a world republic of clear-minded people. A strike turns into a riot. When soldiers fire on the crowd, Benham runs into the street to stop it and is shot. He dies, and White is left with the papers and a promise to make a book of them, and the story becomes that account.
The whole book is coming to your plan
The full text of Het magnifieke onderzoek 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 Het magnifieke onderzoek
What is The Research Magnificent about?
It follows William Porphyry Benham, a wealthy young Englishman who wants to live nobly. He studies his own fears, desires, jealousy and prejudice, travels the world to learn how it is governed, and records it all in papers a friend later sorts through.
What does the title The Research Magnificent mean?
It is the story's title, reflecting Benham's lifelong inquiry into how a person can live nobly and help transform human society. The research is real and documented, but it grows too vast and tangled to fit into one book.
What are the four Limitations in the book?
They are Benham's list of forces that hold people back from a noble life: Fear, Indulgence, Jealousy and Prejudice. He tests each in his own life, then studies how they work in nations and groups.
When was The Research Magnificent written, and is it a true story?
H. G. Wells wrote it in the early 1910s and it is fiction. Many places and events in it are real, including the Russian revolution of 1905, the Balkan travels and the 1913 Johannesburg strike, but Benham and his circle are invented.
Verwijs naar deze uitgave
Wells, H. G. The Research Magnificent. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-research-magnificent.
Wells, H. G. (2026). The research magnificent. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-research-magnificent (Original work published 1915)
Wells, H. G. The Research Magnificent. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-research-magnificent.
@book{wells2026research,
author = {Wells, H. G.},
title = {The Research Magnificent},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-research-magnificent},
note = {First published 1915}
}
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 Het magnifieke onderzoek, 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
