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Audiobook editionPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
A small hole in a boarding-house wall opens onto lives that no one means to share.
In Henri Barbusse’s The Inferno, a lonely man takes a room in a Paris boarding house. A small opening lets him see and hear the room next door. He watches lovers meet, sickness bring pain, and private doubts emerge. Ordinary life unfolds before a stranger who remains unseen.
But watching does not leave him untouched. What he sees pushes him toward questions about desire, solitude, death, and belief. Barbusse turns a simple act of spying into an intense study of hidden lives—and of the solitary mind trying to understand what lies before it.
What you’ll discover
- A room next door Enter a Paris boarding house where a small opening makes other lives uncomfortably close.
- Life without its mask Watch love, grief, and shame emerge when people believe no stranger can see them.
- The weight of watching Follow a lonely observer as private moments draw him into questions larger than himself.
- Belief beside doubt Encounter quiet questions of faith alongside the pain of sickness and the nearness of death.
- An unsettling closeness Feel the unease of seeing intimate lives from a distance no wall can quite preserve.
Who will love it
You will love this book if you enjoy intimate scenes, searching talk about love and death, and a narrator who watches the world through a crack.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- Contentment hides a hunger for more
- A hidden opening changes his sight
- First love escapes those who live it
- The lovers share fear rather than understanding
- Joy cannot be separated from sorrow
- Kindness can carry a little pride
- Care and belief meet a dying man
- Watching others exposes the watcher's hunger
Who’s who
- The narratorA lonely thirty-year-old bank clerk who peers through a damaged partition into the next room and wants to see the real, hidden truth about human beings.
- AmyA married woman who takes a lover to escape boredom and then weeps over time, solitude and death.
- The poetAmy's lover, a handsome writer who talks of eternity and whose best words come when he speaks of his poems.
- PhilipA wealthy, widely traveled man with a fatal illness who loves his young companion and clings to his memories.
- AnnaA tall, fair young woman who cares for Philip with devotion while her heart belongs to another man.
- MichelThe dark, handsome young man Anna loves, who longs to be reunited with her.
- Madame LemercierThe landlady of the boardinghouse, who worries more about her house and her reputation than about her sick guests.
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The Inferno
by Henri Barbusse · 1908
Through a hole in a boardinghouse wall, a lonely lodger watches strangers love, grieve and die in the next room.
Easy read2–5 hours to read20 languages
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In short
What would you do if a crack in the wall let you watch the private lives of strangers? That is the offer that comes to the nameless young man in The Inferno.
The Inferno at a glance
- Reading time
- About 2 h 40 min2 h 10 min fast, 3 h 15 min slow
- Length
- 38,500 words
- Library level
- Easy short sentences, plain words
- First published
- 1908by Henri Barbusse
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
A bare room shows a man he is alone
The novel opens in a room that belongs to nobody. Madame Lemercier, the landlady, leaves the narrator there after a speech praising her house. He studies the gray room, the armchairs with smeared upholstery and the carpet with a path worn from door to window. A whole world of guests has passed through like smoke, leaving the room worn, tarnished and smudged.
Then he studies his own face in the mirror. He thinks of himself as a decent, ordinary man. He believes in God without dogma, and he has a sweetheart named Josette, whom he sometimes desires wildly and sometimes finds repellent. He tells himself he is happy, and he almost believes it.
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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
- 1908
- Language
- English
- Reading time
- 3 h 0 min
- Level
- Easy read
Cite this edition
Barbusse, Henri. The Inferno. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-inferno.
Barbusse, H. (2026). The Inferno. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-inferno (Original work published 1908)
Barbusse, Henri. The Inferno. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-inferno.
@book{barbusse2026inferno,
author = {Barbusse, Henri},
title = {The Inferno},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-inferno},
note = {First published 1908}
}
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What is The Inferno by Henri Barbusse about?
A young man moves into a Paris boardinghouse and finds a hole in the wall that looks into the next room. He watches lovers, a dying traveler, a priest and others, and slowly forms his own view of human desire and solitude.
What does the Room mean in The Inferno?
The Room is the guest room next door, seen through the crack in the wall. It stands for the hidden places where people drop their masks, and it is identical to the narrator's own, so it also stands for every human being.
Who is the narrator of The Inferno?
He is an unnamed thirty-year-old orphan who has come from the country to work at a bank. He feels empty and cut off, and the book follows what he sees, and how he is changed, during his stay.
The author
Henri Barbusse
1873–1935 · French novelist
Henri Barbusse was a French author born in Asnières-sur-Seine in 1873. He wrote The Inferno, published in 1908, and Under Fire, published in 1916. He served in the French army during the First World War and joined the French Communist Party in 1923. He died in Moscow in 1935.
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