15 h 51 minAudiobook7 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 happens when an artist’s search for beauty leads him toward money, a Pacific shipwreck, and hidden secrets?
Loudon Dodd wants to make art, not follow his father into business. From Michigan to the art schools of Paris, he seeks a life shaped by beauty. But family money troubles pull him toward practical choices, and his confident friend Jim Pinkerton brings schemes that are hard to resist.
In The Wrecker, Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne lead you from studios and San Francisco streets toward the Pacific. Pinkerton takes an interest in the wreck of the Flying Scud, whose remains come up for auction. A lost ship becomes the heart of a mystery that tests friendship, greed, and the search for truth.
What you’ll discover
- An artist pulled toward business Follow Loudon as the need for money presses against his wish for a life of beauty.
- A friend full of schemes Meet Jim Pinkerton, whose speeches, confidence, and restless plans bring comic energy to Loudon’s world.
- The Flying Scud mystery Discover how a wreck offered at auction draws these friends toward the secrets of a lost ship.
- Heat and Pacific glare Enter a world of lonely islands, small ships, and mixed crews as the sea adventure unfolds.
- Beauty set against money Explore the uneasy space between Loudon’s love of art and Pinkerton’s appetite for action.
Who will love it
For readers who like sea voyages, island mysteries and comic portraits of ambitious dreamers, and for anyone who enjoys a story that moves from Paris studios to Pacific reefs.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A boy raised to gamble, who wants art
- Paris gives him a friend he cannot escape
- Ruin in Paris and a rescue he resents
- An inheritance, a lecture and the Dromedary
- A saloon, a newspaper and a mad auction
- Vanishing men and a hasty wedding
- Storm, reef and the wreck's strange clues
- A friend's desperate plea and a difficult choice
- What the story is really about
Who’s who
- Loudon DoddAn American sculptor and the narrator, gentle and unlucky, who wants only to make art but is drawn into business and adventure.
- Captain NaresThe proud, brutal and brave American sailor who commands the Norah Creina and becomes Loudon's unwilling friend.
- MamiePinkerton's quick-tempered, devoted wife, who guards her husband and doubts Loudon.
- Captain TrentThe nervous master of the wrecked brig Flying Scud, who seems afraid and wants the wreck back.
- Harry D. BellairsA disgraced lawyer who bids for the wreck and later tracks the secret across the world.
- Norris CarthewA rich and gentle Englishman hiding under other names, who holds the key to the mystery.
- JohnsonA kindly, rough mate and sailor who guides Loudon to the waterfront crew.
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- Hardcover
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- Large print paperback
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- Large print hardcover
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The Wrecker
by Robert Louis Stevenson; Lloyd Osbourne · 1892
A broke sculptor and his businessman friend bid fifty thousand dollars for a wreck that a stranger desperately wants.
Medium level10–20 hours to read25 languages
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In short
What would you pay for a wrecked ship with a secret in her hold? In The Wrecker, Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne send an American sculptor from a Paris garret to a San Francisco auction room and on to a reef in the middle of the Pacific.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A boy raised to gamble, who wants art
The story is told by Loudon Dodd, an American who later writes down the story he tells a friend in the Marquesas. His father, a driven Muskegon speculator, sends him to a commercial college where students trade imaginary wheat with play money. Loudon cares only for art and fails at the game.
His father keeps trying to help. He offers Paris if Loudon can double his college paper, then wires him tips like a partner. When Loudon cashes in a little paper to buy an easel, the scheme collapses. Loudon is treated as a thief for thirty dollars.
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What is The Wrecker about?
It follows Loudon Dodd, an American artist who, with his friend Pinkerton, buys a wrecked ship at auction and sails to a Pacific reef to find the hidden cargo and the secret behind the sale.
Who wrote The Wrecker?
Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne write it together. The idea came to them aboard a schooner in the Pacific, where the two men talked over stories about wrecks.
Who is Jim Pinkerton?
Pinkerton is Loudon's loud, hopeful American friend, who runs many businesses at once. He is comic and loyal, and he drives the plot by turning every chance into a speculation.
The author
Robert Louis Stevenson
1850–1894 · Scottish novelist and poet
Robert Louis Stevenson was a Scottish novelist and poet, born in Edinburgh in 1850. He wrote Treasure Island (1883), A Child’s Garden of Verses (1885), and Kidnapped and Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886). He settled in Samoa in 1890 and died there in 1894.
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