Summary
Summary of The Lifted Veil
Who it’s for
For readers who love short, dark stories with a psychological edge, Gothic confessions, and supernatural gifts that become curses.
What this book is
The Lifted Veil is a short novel by George Eliot, first printed in 1859. It is a strange book in her career. She is known for calm, wide pictures of English village life, such as Adam Bede and Middlemarch. Here she writes a dark first-person confession in the style of a Gothic tale, with a sickly narrator, a foreseen death and a gift that turns into a punishment.
The story is told by Latimer, a man who begins by saying that he knows the hour of his own death, which is close. He writes to set down the truth of his life before it ends. You get a haunting voice, a plot with a cold sense of fate, and a question that Eliot cares about all through her work: what happens to a person who cannot feel real sympathy for others? Let us begin where Latimer begins, in a childhood of poor health, quick feelings and loneliness.
In this summary
- 1A man announces the hour of his deathFree
- 2A frail boy among stronger people
- 3A vision of Prague comes true
- 4The curse of hearing every mind
- 5Bertha Grant, the one mind he cannot read
- 6What the tale means and how it is told
Key point 1 of 6
A man announces the hour of his death
The story opens with Latimer's own statement that the time of his end is near. He says he knows the month and almost the minute, and he claims he does not fear the thought. He writes, he says, because he wants one person to see him as he truly was, since no one else ever has.
This opening sets the tone for everything that follows. Latimer is not a hero, and he does not ask us to like him. He is an educated, sensitive and proud man, and he tells his story with a mix of self-pity and sharp honesty. From the first page the reader must decide how far to trust him.
He says that his gift has left him with a strange knowledge of the future, but also a weary hatred of it. Some of his foresight is clear and some is blurred. He treats it as a curse, because it takes away surprise, hope and the ordinary sense of living day by day.
He then turns back to his youth, to explain how he came to be this way. He comes from a well-off English family, and his mother died when he was young.
That’s 1 of 6 key points.
The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
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Who’s who
- Latimer
- Latimer is the sensitive, lonely narrator, whose visions and access to others’ thoughts separate him from his family.
- Bertha Grant
- Bertha Grant is Alfred’s intended bride, whose unreadable thoughts make her especially fascinating to Latimer.
- Alfred
- Alfred is Latimer’s strong, cheerful older brother, favoured by their father and expected to marry Bertha.
- Latimer's father
- Latimer's father is a stern, practical banker who favours Alfred and encourages his younger son toward science.
- Charles Meunier
- Charles Meunier is Latimer’s school friend from Geneva, distinguished by his enthusiasm for science and medicine.
About this edition
Every format is free to start, and print and large print are at cost.
- LengthAbout 18,000 words
- Reading timeAbout 1 h 10 min
- Listening time2 h
- FormatseBook, large-print eBook, audiobook, 15-minute summary
- LanguagesEnglish and 11 other languages