7 h 31 minAudiobook8 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 you drift between a quiet English village and a fairy court, never certain which world is real?
In Lewis Carroll’s Sylvie and Bruno, an older, unnamed narrator slips between two worlds. In Elveston, he meets his friend Doctor Arthur Forester and the lively Lady Muriel Orme, whose circle talks about love, faith and good manners. Then village life gives way to a fairy court full of quarrels and plots, where two children offer a gentler way to live.
Sylvie is sensible and caring; her little brother Bruno is stubborn, funny and full of sudden ideas. Around them, the absent-minded Professor devises strange inventions, while songs and word games interrupt solemn talk. As the worlds cross, Carroll brings questions of kindness and duty into his nonsense. The pleasure lies as much in these curious encounters as in discovering what happens next.
What you’ll discover
- Two worlds crossing Follow a narrator whose uncertain footing makes ordinary village life feel strange.
- Kindness amid court quarrels Meet Sylvie and Bruno, whose care for others stands against the fairy court’s plots.
- The Professor’s odd inventions Enjoy a kindly scholar whose wandering mind turns solemn lectures into comedy.
- Love beneath polite conversation Spend time with Lady Muriel and Doctor Forester, where private feelings accompany talk of duty.
- Nonsense with serious questions Find comic songs and playful language beside gentle arguments about how to live.
Who will love it
For readers who love Carroll's wordplay, are curious about his more serious side, and enjoy Victorian oddities. Fairy worlds, comic songs, strange inventions and ideas about kindness, duty and reality meet here.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A narrator caught between two worlds
- Sylvie and Bruno bring kindness to the court
- The Professor and his absurd inventions
- Elveston and the friends around Lady Muriel
- What the book says about love and duty
- Nonsense, songs and a strange way of telling
Who’s who
- The narratorAn older, unnamed man who drifts between English village life and the fairy court, and tells us what he sees without fully understanding it.
- SylvieA gentle, sensible fairy girl who cares for her brother and tries to help everyone around her.
- BrunoSylvie's small brother, stubborn and funny, famous for his baby talk and his sudden bright ideas.
- Lady Muriel OrmeA lively young woman of Elveston, quick in conversation, who is sought after by more than one admirer.
- Doctor Arthur ForesterThe narrator's friend, a kind physician devoted to his patients, whose private feelings sit quietly behind his work.
- The ProfessorA gentle, absent-minded scholar at the fairy court who builds odd inventions and gives solemn lectures that rarely work out.
- The EarlLady Muriel's father, a learned and mild man who loves books and good conversation.
- Mein HerrA foreign visitor with strange and witty ideas about how the world should be run and measured.
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- Audiobook
- 7 h 31 min, complete, read by Lucas Linden.
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas in about 8 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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Sylvie and Bruno
by Lewis Carroll · 1889
Two fairy children bring kindness to a court of quarrels and plots as a narrator slips between worlds.
Medium level5–10 hours to read25 languages
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From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A narrator caught between two worlds
The book begins with a narrator who cannot quite say where he is. He is an older man, thoughtful and a little tired, who tells us that he drifts into a state he calls eerie. In that state he sees things that other people around him do not see. The reader is warned early that the story will move between waking life and something dreamlike, and that the borders will not be marked.
This device is the key to the whole book. In the English scenes, the narrator behaves like a polite guest at a country house or a seat in a railway carriage. In the fairy scenes, he watches from the side, unseen, as events unfold at a court far away. He is not a hero. He is a witness, and he often tells us how little he understands.
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What is Sylvie and Bruno about?
It follows an unnamed narrator who moves between an English village and a fairy court. There he meets the fairy children Sylvie and Bruno, and the two worlds comment on each other through jokes, songs and talk about kindness.
Is Sylvie and Bruno a children's book?
Partly. Carroll wrote it for children and has comic songs and fairy scenes. But it also holds long adult talk about faith, charity and love, so it reads as a book for both young and grown readers.
When was Sylvie and Bruno written?
The first volume was published in 1889 and the second, Sylvie and Bruno Concluded, in 1893. Carroll had gathered ideas, verses and fragments for it over many years before putting it together.
The author
Lewis Carroll
1832–1898 · English children's writer and mathematician
Lewis Carroll was the pen name of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, born in Cheshire, England, in 1832. He lived and taught mathematics at Christ Church, Oxford. He wrote Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865), Through the Looking-Glass (1871), and Sylvie and Bruno (1889). He died in Guildford, England, in 1898.
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