10 h 5 minAudiobook14 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at cost
Audiobook edition · 10 h 5 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What does it cost to keep a secret when duty and honor demand their due?
On a remote island garrison, duty is more than a word. It is a code people live by—and must pay for. In Major Vigoureux, Arthur Quiller-Couch brings honor and secret keeping together, inviting you into a world where a name, a rank, or a promise carries weight.
Quiller-Couch, known as Q, tells this story in the formal, flowing English of his time. The pace is unhurried, the sentences sometimes long. Here, the pull comes from the pressure of what remains hidden and the demands of living by a code. Read for atmosphere, language, and questions without easy answers.
What you’ll discover
- An island apart Enter a remote island garrison where duty and honor shape the story's world.
- The price of honor Consider what people owe their code, and what living by it can cost.
- Secrets under pressure Feel the tension between what someone knows and what another must not learn.
- A slower literary pleasure Settle into flowing sentences and a storytelling manner that asks you to linger.
- Q beyond the anthologies Meet Arthur Quiller-Couch as a novelist through a tale of duty and hidden knowledge.
Who will love it
You will love this book if you enjoy gentle comedy, small island communities, kind and stubborn old soldiers, and warm tales where honor matters more than money.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- Kindness keeps the Major silent
- Duty calls through the fog
- A stranger knows the harbour
- Hospitality has a hidden cost
- Vashti asks goodness to act
- Ownership does not mean belonging
- The Major begins to speak
- Humor makes hidden feelings visible
- Quiet goodness faces a public test
Who’s who
- Major Narcisse VigoureuxThe kind, shy Commandant of an empty garrison, who wants to do right by his family and his conscience at the same time.
- Vashti CaraA fisherman's daughter turned famous singer, who returns to the Islands to see her sister and ends up defending her neighbours.
- Sir Cæsar HutchinsThe banker and Lord Proprietor of the Islands, who wants to be a benevolent king and cannot see the people in front of him.
- Sergeant ArchelausThe Commandant's tall, blunt old servant, who wants his master respected and his own legs decently covered.
- Miss GabrielA sharp-tongued, well-off spinster who rules Garland Town gossip and wants to expose whatever the Commandant is hiding.
- Eli TregarthenThe slow, stubborn farmer of Saaron Island, who wants only to keep his family on the land his ancestors worked.
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Major Vigoureux
by Arthur Quiller-Couch · 1907
A forgotten major draws pay for guns that are gone, until a woman steps out of the fog and asks him to row her ashore.
Medium level5–10 hours to read2 languages
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In short
What would you do if you had been paid for five years to guard guns that no longer exist? Major Narcisse Vigoureux, Commandant of a tiny island garrison off the English coast, does nothing about it.
Major Vigoureux at a glance
- Reading time
- About 5 h 50 min4 h 40 min fast, 6 h 55 min slow
- Length
- 83,400 words
- Library level
- Medium longer sentences, everyday words
- First published
- 1907by Arthur Quiller-Couch
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). How long the classics take to read · Updated
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A garrison without guns still draws its pay
The story opens in the neglected garden of the garrison. Sergeant Archelaus is digging there in a pair of loud checkered trousers that the Lord Proprietor has given him. The Commandant, Major Narcisse Vigoureux, goes red as he looks at them.
The guns were taken away five years ago. The War Office ordered the garrison disbanded, yet by some oversight it never retired the Major or his two sergeants. Every month their full pay arrives from Mr. Fossell, the banker. No stores or clothing ever come, and the Major dares not ask for any.
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- 15-minute summary
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Details
- First published
- 1907
- Language
- English
- Level
- Medium level
Cite this edition
Quiller-Couch, Arthur. Major Vigoureux. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/major-vigoureux.
Quiller-Couch, A. (2026). Major Vigoureux. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/major-vigoureux (Original work published 1907)
Quiller-Couch, Arthur. Major Vigoureux. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/major-vigoureux.
@book{quillercouch2026major,
author = {Quiller-Couch, Arthur},
title = {Major Vigoureux},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/major-vigoureux},
note = {First published 1907}
}
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What is Major Vigoureux about?
It follows a kind, poor Commandant of a disbanded garrison on remote Atlantic islands. His quiet secret is tested when a famous singer from the Islands returns, and when a rich landlord threatens a farmer's home.
Who is Vashti Cara in Major Vigoureux?
Vashti is a fisherman's daughter who left the Islands fifteen years earlier and became a celebrated singer. She returns by a liner and helps the Commandant and her sister's family.
Where is Major Vigoureux set?
The story takes place on a group of fictional islands in the Atlantic, west of England, in Victorian times. The islands have a garrison, a bank, an inn, farms, lighthouses, and many tide-races.
The author
Arthur Quiller-Couch
1863–1944 · English novelist and literary critic
Arthur Quiller-Couch (1863–1944) was a British writer and literary critic. He was born in Bodmin, Cornwall, and later lived in Fowey. He wrote novels under the name Q, including Major Vigoureux, published in 1907. He edited The Oxford Book of English Verse and became a professor at Cambridge in 1912.
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