14 h 42 minAudiobook7 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 happens when a wish or fear takes hold—and begins to rule every choice?
In The Beckoning Hand, and Other Stories, Grant Allen gathers thirteen tales of mystery, obsession, and the unexpected. Strangeness and strong desire drive these short pieces. Each offers a story small enough for a single sitting, with the uneasy pleasure of not knowing what comes next.
Allen writes novels and magazine tales as well as essays on science and nature. Here, his short fiction belongs to a Victorian world whose manners and social rules shape what people say and do. The prose asks you to settle into its longer sentences and give its surprises room to work.
What you’ll discover
- Desire takes hold Explore how a wish, fear, or fixation can begin to govern a person's choices.
- The pull of mystery Enter tales built around strangeness, where uncertainty gives you a reason to keep reading.
- Surprise in small spaces Find the pleasure of the unexpected within stories you can finish in one sitting.
- Victorian manners and pressures Notice how social rules shape the words and actions of people within these tales.
- An uneasy reading hour Settle into formal prose and odd stories that invite you to linger with uncertainty.
Who will love it
Readers who enjoy Victorian short fiction, from comic mix-ups to haunted marriages and Arctic confessions, will find a tale for each mood. It suits anyone who likes clues, ciphers and narrators who tell on themselves.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A striking bride and a beckoning hand
- Two young Englishmen misread two charming women
- Secret absences and a secret letter
- A museum coin vanishes and a collector is blamed
- Comic dilemmas of a name and a fossil
- Twins who fall for the same girl
- A Siberian baron and a pirate's chest
- Confessions and debts of honor
- What binds these thirteen tales together
Who’s who
- Harry TristramA young Devonshire landowner who is drawn to the striking Césarine Vivian against his own judgment and his old tie to Irene.
- Césarine VivianA tall, proud young woman raised between England and Haiti, who speaks of a hand that beckons her home.
- Harold TaitA coin collector who is accused of stealing the Museum's gold Wulfric and is determined to prove the truth.
- Cecil MitfordA Colonial Office clerk who is so set on finding John Cann's treasure that he deceives the woman he loves.
- Ernest and Harold CarnegieTwin brothers, a doctor and a lawyer, whose lives run in step until both fall in love with Isabel Walters.
- Olga DavidoffA merchant's daughter in Tobolsk who marries a charming Buriat baron and follows him to a distant mountain fort.
- Cyril MilliterA comparative anatomist and lay preacher who finds a fossil that tests everything he has preached.
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- Audiobook
- 14 h 42 min, complete, read by Lucas Linden.
- 15-minute summary
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- Paperback
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- Hardcover
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- Large print paperback
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- Large print hardcover
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The Beckoning Hand, and Other Stories
by Grant Allen · 1887
A young clerk spends his fiancée's savings chasing a buccaneer's buried hoard from London to Jamaica.
Medium level10–20 hours to read25 languages
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In short
What if a single misread glance could ruin a life? In The Beckoning Hand, and Other Stories, Grant Allen, a Victorian writer who died in 1899, gathers thirteen tales in which someone misreads another person, a clue or himself.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A striking bride and a beckoning hand
In the title story, Harry Tristram, twenty-two and master of a Devonshire estate, tells his own tale. At a London theater he sees Césarine Vivian, a dark and queenly woman. Something in her gaze repels him, and he cannot look away.
When a cry of fire sends the audience stampeding, she alone stays calm. She goes back into the smoke for her opera glasses, and Harry follows. Her cool nerve fixes her in his mind.
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What is The Beckoning Hand and Other Stories about?
It is a collection of thirteen Victorian short stories by Grant Allen. They deal with love, money, jealousy and obsession, in settings from Devonshire to Haiti and the Arctic, and each story turns on a person who misreads a clue.
Which stories are in The Beckoning Hand and Other Stories?
The book contains The Beckoning Hand, Lucretia, The Third Time, The Gold Wulfric, My Uncle's Will, The Two Carnegies, Olga Davidoff's Husband, John Cann's Treasure, Isaline and I, Professor Milliter's Dilemma, In Strict Confidence, The Search Party's Find and Harry's Inheritance.
Who is Césarine Vivian in The Beckoning Hand?
Césarine is a tall, dark-haired young woman brought up between England, France and Haiti. Harry Tristram meets her at a London theater, is both attracted and afraid, and marries her. She often speaks of a hand that beckons her home.
The author
Grant Allen
1848–1899 · British novelist and science writer
Grant Allen was born near Kingston, Canada, in 1848 and died in Surrey, England, in 1899. He lived in Canada, Jamaica and England. He wrote about science and evolution, as well as novels and short stories. His books include Physiological Aesthetics (1877) and the novel The Woman Who Did (1895).
More by Grant Allen
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