12 h 59 minAudiobook14 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at cost
Audiobook edition · 12 h 59 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
Can a man leave his criminal past behind when a whole town is watching?
Slippy McGee knows the world of safes and night work. But he is also the Butterfly Man, a gentler figure with a different place in life. In Marie Conway Oemler’s novel, these two names frame a question: who will he choose to be when he has the chance to live differently?
Around him, a small Southern town keeps watch. Neighbors know one another, gossip travels, and secrets are hard to keep. Quiet loyalties sit beside unanswered questions as Slippy’s chance at a fresh start takes shape. Mystery and intrigue give this warm story its tension, while the community faces its own question: whom can it trust?
What you’ll discover
- One man, two names Meet Slippy McGee and the Butterfly Man, two sides of a life caught between past and possibility.
- A town that notices Enter a Southern community where neighbors, gossip, and quiet loyalties shape the question of trust.
- The cost of change Follow a man offered another chance, with the weight of wrongdoing still part of his story.
- Secrets beneath ordinary life Find intrigue in hidden things and unanswered questions woven through a small town’s daily life.
- Warmth without a cynical edge Spend time with a hopeful, sentimental tale that makes room for a change of heart.
Who will love it
You will love this book if you enjoy warm Southern small-town stories, gentle humor, gardens and wildlife, and a reformed rogue. Readers of old-fashioned redemption tales will feel at home.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- Loss opens a house to others
- The priest offers trust without conditions
- A child notices his hidden worth
- Useful work gives Flint another identity
- Protecting children means confronting power
- A child's curl speaks for many
- Change does not erase old desires
- Faith holds when love looks false
- Small kindnesses make another life possible
Who’s who
- Father Armand De RancéThe gentle old priest of Appleboro who tells the story, loves moths and butterflies, and gives a dying tramp a place to live.
- John FlintThe one-legged stranger, once the famous safecracker Slippy McGee, who learns to love insects and becomes the Butterfly Man.
- Madame De RancéThe priest's proud, loving mother, who nurses the poor and quietly runs the Parish House and everyone in it.
- Mary Virginia EustisThe rich girl of Appleboro, honest and warm, who gives the gray moth and her dog Kerry to Flint and wants to be happy.
- Laurence MayneThe judge's son, a young lawyer who plans to clean up the town and win Mary Virginia's love.
- Doctor Walter WestmorelandThe huge, kind, absent-minded doctor who treats the poor without payment and loves the mill children.
- George InglesbyThe Boss of Appleboro, a rich and ruthless financier who owns the mills and the bank and wants more power.
- J. Howard HunterInglesby's handsome private secretary, charming and clever, who serves the Boss's ambitions.
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- Paperback
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- Hardcover
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- Large print hardcover
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Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man
by Marie Conway Oemler · 1917
A priest hides a burglar's kit under a saint's statue while a one-legged tramp learns to love butterflies.
Medium level5–10 hours to read2 languages
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In short
What does a priest do when he finds a burglar's kit in the bag of a crippled tramp? Father Armand De Rancé of Appleboro, South Carolina, hides it under the statue of a saint and says three Hail Marys.
Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man at a glance
- Reading time
- About 7 h 30 min6 h fast, 8 h 55 min slow
- Length
- 107,400 words
- Library level
- Medium longer sentences, everyday words
- First published
- 1917by Marie Conway Oemler
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
Appleboro keeps its old ways and unpainted fences
Appleboro is a quiet Carolina town where front fences are never painted and neighbors love to compare grandfathers. Its spirit lives in a stern granite soldier on the town monument.
As a young man, Armand De Rancé is rich and proud, and he plans to marry the girl he has loved since childhood. On a May morning he rides to her house and finds that she has drowned herself in the river. Later a call leads him into the priesthood, and a bishop sends him to a mill parish. Then the banker who guards the family money kills himself, and the fortune goes with him.
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Which edition is right for me
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas of the whole book in about 14 minutes. A good first look, or a refresher.
Details
- First published
- 1917
- Language
- English
- Reading time
- 8 h 25 min
- Level
- Medium level
Cite this edition
Oemler, Marie Conway. Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/slippy-mcgee-sometimes-known-as-the-butterfly-man.
Oemler, M. C. (2026). Slippy McGee, sometimes known as the Butterfly Man. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/slippy-mcgee-sometimes-known-as-the-butterfly-man (Original work published 1917)
Oemler, Marie Conway. Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/slippy-mcgee-sometimes-known-as-the-butterfly-man.
@book{oemler2026slippy,
author = {Oemler, Marie Conway},
title = {Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/slippy-mcgee-sometimes-known-as-the-butterfly-man},
note = {First published 1917}
}
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What is Slippy McGee about?
It tells of a crippled safecracker who is nursed by a priest in a South Carolina town, learns to love butterflies, and becomes a respected naturalist and a protector of his friends.
Who is the Butterfly Man in Slippy McGee?
He is John Flint, the borrowed name the stranger supplies and the priest agrees to use. He was once the famous burglar Slippy McGee, and country children later call him the Butterfly Man for his net and his insects.
Is Slippy McGee a true story?
No, it is a novel by Marie Conway Oemler, who died in 1932. Appleboro is an invented town, though the setting reflects real Southern mill towns and the habits of naturalists of her time.
The author
Marie Conway Oemler
1879–1932 · American novelist
Marie Conway Oemler was an American writer born in Savannah, Georgia, in 1879. She lived in Savannah and wrote novels in the early twentieth century. Her books include Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man, published in 1917, and A Woman Named Smith, published in 1919. She died in 1932.
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