6 h 44 minAudiobook7 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at cost
Audiobook edition · 6 h 44 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What if a child understands more than every adult around him, yet finds no place among them?
In a quiet English village, Victor Stott is born with an unusually large head and a mind beyond anyone he meets. His father, Ginger Stott, knows cricket but cannot grasp his son. As Victor grows, his difference unsettles the ordinary world around him.
Challis, a learned neighbour with a library, sees a mind where others see a curiosity. He tries to befriend and teach Victor. In The Hampdenshire Wonder, J. D. Beresford brings science fiction into village life, asking how people respond to someone whose understanding reaches far beyond their own.
What you’ll discover
- An extraordinary outsider Meet a child who sees problems the adults around him do not even recognise.
- A village under strain Watch ordinary neighbours try to make sense of a boy unlike any they know.
- A scholar reaches out Follow Challis as he tries to meet Victor with thought rather than mere curiosity.
- The limits of understanding Consider whether greater knowledge brings connection, or leaves a person further apart from others.
- Quiet, searching science fiction Enter a measured story where one strange fact challenges the familiar shape of village life.
Who will love it
You will enjoy it if you love early science fiction, quiet English village settings, sharp portraits of doctors, clergymen and committees, and big questions about what a mind far beyond ours might say.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A baby's stare silences a railway carriage
- A cricket hero dreams of fathering a champion
- A strange birth frightens doctor, nurse and village
- A boy takes his father's chair and ends a marriage
- A landowner meets the boy and offers his library
- The boy reads an encyclopedia and finally speaks
- A village committee tries to measure the child
- The boy finds his own way among books
- What the story is about and how it is told
Who’s who
- Victor StottThe Wonder, a bald, silent child with an enormous head and a mind that outpaces every book and every adult around him.
- Ginger StottA famous county bowler who loses his finger and hopes to father a son he can teach to bowl from the cradle.
- Ellen Mary StottVictor's mother, a plain, clear-headed woman who offers herself in marriage and quietly worships her extraordinary son.
- Henry ChallisA learned landowner and student of primitive peoples who gives the boy his library and fears what the boy knows.
- Gregory LewesChallis's young secretary, a skeptical student of science who doubts that the child is more than a freak of memory.
- Percy CrashawThe rector of Stoke, a narrow and fearful man who calls the boy possessed and tries to force him into school.
- The narratorA restless writer who meets the baby on a train and later spends a summer as the boy's silent companion.
- The Harrison boyA drooling village idiot who feels a bond with the Wonder and follows him across the Common.
Formats and delivery
- eBook
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- Large-print eBook
- The same book in bigger, clearer type, from the first page.
- Audiobook
- 6 h 44 min, complete, read by Lucas Linden.
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas in about 7 minutes, to read or to hear.
- Paperback
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Hardcover
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- 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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The Hampdenshire Wonder
by J. D. Beresford · 1911
A bald infant on a train stares down a carriage of grown men, and a reader feels the book's chill at once.
Medium level5–10 hours to read25 languages
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In short
What happens when a child looks at you and you suddenly feel small? In The Hampdenshire Wonder, a man on a train meets a bald infant whose stare silences a carriage full of grown adults.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A baby's stare silences a railway carriage
The book opens with a small scene that sets its whole mood. A man tells of a train journey during which he is reading the philosopher Bergson on free will. A woman with a baby gets in, and the child's calm, clever eyes pull his attention from the page.
The baby holds one passenger after another with that steady look. A shabby man stares back with his mouth open. A ruddy man in gold spectacles bravely asks whether the child can talk, and whether he has water on the brain. The baby answers with a look of pity and contempt, and the man shrinks into his corner. When the mother leaves at Great Hittenden station, the other passengers talk loudly about freaks and imbeciles, hiding how frightened they were.
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What is The Hampdenshire Wonder about?
It follows Victor Stott, a bald child with a huge head and a mind far beyond ordinary people. Those around him fear, study or try to control him, while a narrator tells his story from a train to the village of Pym.
Who is the Wonder in the book?
The Wonder is Victor Stott, the son of Ginger Stott, a famous cricket bowler, and Ellen Mary. At four and a half, he reads a dictionary and an encyclopedia, speaks little, and puzzles the clever men who meet him.
Why does the book include so much cricket?
The early chapters describe Ginger Stott's rise as a bowler to explain the father's hope of having a champion son. The sport also gives the story warmth, humor and a contrast with the boy's world of ideas.
The author
J. D. Beresford
1873–1947 · English novelist
J. D. Beresford was John Davys Beresford, a British novelist and short-story writer. He was born in Castor, Northamptonshire, in 1873 and died in Bath in 1947. He worked as an architect before becoming a writer. His novels include The Hampdenshire Wonder, published in 1911, and Goslings, published in 1913.
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