2 h 29 minAudiobook9 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 if a second chance gives you a different life, but leaves you exactly as you are?
On Midsummer Eve, an English country house fills with guests who carry private regrets. Their host, Lob, is old, puckish, and full of secrets. As his butler Matey prepares for the gathering, a strange possibility hangs over the party: a wood may appear where no wood belongs.
In J. M. Barrie's three-act play Dear Brutus, that wood offers a chance to explore lives never lived. Mr. Dearth, a painter who drinks and mourns his wasted talent, longs for something better. Around him, disappointed husbands and wives wonder whether different choices could bring happiness—or whether they carry their troubles within them.
What you’ll discover
- A host with secrets Meet Lob, whose teasing manner and strange invitations draw regretful guests toward the wood.
- A wood beyond reason Step from a country house into a midsummer mystery where familiar people become different.
- The ache of wasted gifts Follow Dearth's longing for a better life beneath his bitterness and drinking.
- Laughter with a sting Find fairy-tale wonder and grown-up sadness sharing the same stage, without easy comfort.
- Fate meets personal choice Consider whether another past could change us, or merely reveal who we already are.
Who will love it
For readers who love fairy tale mixed with grown-up sadness, and anyone who has ever wondered about the road not taken. It is also a good short way into Barrie beyond Peter Pan.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A odd host gathers regretful guests
- Midsummer Eve brings a wood that should not exist
- In the wood, the guests become different people
- Dearth finds a daughter he never had
- The fault is in ourselves, not our stars
- A comedy with a fairy tale and a sting
Who’s who
- LobThe old, puckish host of the house, tied to fairy lore, who invites the guests on Midsummer Eve and quietly sets the wood in motion.
- MateyLob's butler, who helps prepare the house and the party and talks with his master as one who knows the old secret.
- Mr. DearthA painter who has wasted his talent and drinks too much, and who longs for a better life than the one he has.
- Mrs. DearthDearth's wife, whose marriage to him is bitter and full of blame, and who carries her own sorrows.
- Mr. PurdieA guest whose marriage has lost its warmth and who wonders whether another life would have suited him better.
- Mabel PurdiePurdie's wife, a guest with her own private disappointments and her own thoughts about the road she did not take.
- Joanna TroutA guest at the house party, drawn like the others by Lob's invitation and by a wish for a different past.
- Lady Caroline LaneyAn older society lady among the guests, with her own regrets and her own curiosity about the wood.
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- Large-print eBook
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- Audiobook
- 2 h 29 min, complete, read by Lucas Linden.
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas in about 9 minutes, to read or to hear.
- Paperback
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Hardcover
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- Large print paperback
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print hardcover
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
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Read and hear Dear Brutus in 25 languages and switch at any time. Or read two side by side, paragraph by paragraph: the way to learn a language with a book you love.
Dear Brutus
by J. M. Barrie · 1922
A magic wood offers Lob's regretful guests the lives they never lived, putting their choices to the test.
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From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1 of 6
A odd host gathers regretful guests
The play opens in the house of Lob, a very old man with a puckish, fairy-like nature. His butler, Matey, is busy preparing for guests, and the two of them talk about the party in a teasing way. We learn that Lob has invited a group of people to stay for Midsummer Eve. Each of them was sent an invitation, and Barrie lets us feel that none of them quite knows why they came.
The guests are a mixed company. There is Mr. Dearth, a painter who has let his talent slide and drinks too much. There is his wife, and the two of them share a bitter marriage. There are Mr. Purdie and his wife Mabel, whose marriage has lost its warmth. There is Joanna Trout, and there is Lady Caroline Laney, an older society woman. Each is, in some quiet way, unhappy with how life has gone.
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What is Dear Brutus about?
It is about a group of unhappy guests at a country house on Midsummer Eve. A magic wood lets them live the lives they might have had, and the play asks whether a second chance would change them.
Where does the title Dear Brutus come from?
It comes from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, where Cassius says the fault lies not in our stars but in ourselves. Barrie uses the idea as the play's main argument about choice and blame.
Who is Lob in Dear Brutus?
Lob is the old, puckish host of the house party. He is tied to fairy lore and seems to know about the magic wood, and he is the one who invites the guests.
The author
J. M. Barrie
1860–1937 · Scottish novelist and playwright
J. M. Barrie was a Scottish novelist and playwright, remembered above all as the creator of Peter Pan. Peter and Wendy (1911), his novelization of the beloved stage play, gave the world Neverland, Tinker Bell, and Captain Hook in their fullest literary form.
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