3 h 19 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 do you say to your friends when the air outside may bring the end of the world?
Professor George Edward Challenger warns that Earth is about to enter a belt of poisonous ether. Young reporter Edward Malone answers his call to a country house in Sussex, where a sealed room and a supply of oxygen may offer shelter from a danger that threatens everyone.
In Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Poison Belt, a small gathering faces a vast unknown. Lord John Roxton keeps his nerve, Professor Summerlee doubts the warning, and Jessie Challenger faces fear with grace. As the countryside begins to change, Malone watches his friends confront something neither courage nor argument can defeat.
What you’ll discover
- A warning worth questioning Follow a newspaper letter and an unsettling summons into Challenger’s urgent preparations.
- One room, enormous stakes Feel the tension as friends breathe measured oxygen and wait together for what comes next.
- Nerves under pressure Watch skepticism, practical courage, and gentleness shape different responses to the same threat.
- A reporter’s close view See the crisis through Malone’s eyes as his thoughts turn toward those he loves.
- Pride against the universe Explore how a cosmic danger challenges even Challenger’s immense confidence in human understanding.
Who will love it
For readers who love early science fiction, Victorian and Edwardian adventure, or a single dramatic idea told fast. It is also good for anyone who enjoyed Sherlock Holmes.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A Warning Nobody Wants to Believe
- Old Friends Gather at Rotherfield
- Challenger Prepares a Sealed Room
- The World Outside Begins to Change
- Waiting Together as the Hours Run Down
- Humility, Science, and How the Story Is Told
Who’s who
- Professor George Edward ChallengerA loud, brilliant and stubborn scientist who has foreseen the danger and prepares a sealed room with oxygen for his friends.
- Edward MaloneA young newspaper reporter and Challenger's loyal friend, who tells the story as an eyewitness and wonders about those he loves.
- Lord John RoxtonA calm, practical sportsman and explorer who answers Challenger's call and meets the danger with steady nerve.
- Professor SummerleeA dry, skeptical scientist and Challenger's old rival, who comes to the house intending to prove the warning is nonsense.
- Jessie ChallengerThe professor's gentle wife, who faces her fear with grace and shows a softer side of her famous husband.
- AustinThe Challengers' loyal chauffeur, who keeps the household running while the danger grows.
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- Hardcover
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- Large print paperback
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- Large print hardcover
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The Poison Belt
by Arthur Conan Doyle · 1913
In a sealed room in Sussex, Professor Challenger and his friends await a cosmic poison that threatens the world.
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From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1 of 6
A Warning Nobody Wants to Believe
The story opens with a letter from Professor Challenger in the newspapers. He warns that the Earth is about to pass through a belt of poisonous ether, a substance that scientists of the time imagined filling all of space. He bases this on strange changes he has seen in the light of distant stars. The public laughs, and the press treats him as a crank, as it often does.
Malone is not so sure. He knows Challenger well from their adventure on the South American plateau, and he knows the man is hard to like but rarely wrong. Still, the letter sounds wild, and the world around Malone seems normal and busy.
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What is The Poison Belt about?
It is about Professor Challenger's warning that the Earth will pass through a belt of poisonous ether. A small group of friends gather in his Sussex house with oxygen cylinders to wait and see what happens.
Is The Poison Belt a sequel to The Lost World?
Yes. It brings back Challenger, Malone, Lord John Roxton and Professor Summerlee from The Lost World. You can read it alone, but knowing the first book helps with the characters and their jokes.
When was The Poison Belt written?
Arthur Conan Doyle published it in 1913, a year after The Lost World. It belongs to the early period of science fiction, when ether was still a popular scientific idea.
The author
Arthur Conan Doyle
1859–1930 · British detective novelist
Arthur Conan Doyle was a British writer and physician born in Edinburgh in 1859. He practised medicine in England and wrote novels, short stories and histories. His Sherlock Holmes stories began with A Study in Scarlet in 1887. He also wrote The Lost World in 1912. He died in Crowborough, England, in 1930.
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