Story summary
Краткое содержание: Magic
- Чтение: 8 мин.
- 8 parts
- Аудио скоро
A girl meets a hooded wizard in the rain, and a duke who forgets everything hosts a conjurer for the evening.
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Magic — кратко о книге
Краткое содержание: 8 min на чтение
- Время чтения
- Около 55 min45 min fast, 1 h 5 min slow
- Длительность
- Слов: 13 4003 chapters
- Страницы
- Страниц: 4264 in large print
- Уровень в библиотеке
- Средний longer sentences, everyday words
- Первая публикация
- 1913by G. K. Chesterton
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). Сколько времени нужно на чтение классики · Обновлено
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Magic in short
Magic is a play about what happens when a wonder meets a sceptic in a comfortable English drawing room. A girl who believes in fairies meets a hooded wizard in the woods. The wizard proves to be a conjurer in evening dress.
What Magic is about
Picture a misty wood at twilight. A dreamy girl carrying a blossoming branch meets a cloaked figure and listens to his tales of fairies.
Magic is a play in a prelude and three acts by G. K. Chesterton. It keeps to one room and one evening, and it sparkles with jokes about dukes, doctors and clergymen. Underneath sits a serious question. When one man performs a wonder and another explains it away, who has told the truth?
Для кого. Readers who love witty dialogue, comedies with a serious heart, and quarrels between believers and sceptics will enjoy this play. Lovers of fairy tales and clever conjuring will too.
The story in 8 parts
Key idea 1 · free to read
A hooded stranger meets a girl who dreams
The play opens with a prelude in a plantation of thin young trees in a rainy twilight. A cloaked figure stands there, his pointed hood pulled so low that his face can hardly be seen. He traces a pattern on the ground with his staff and mutters a rhyme about a hat that is not worn, a sword that does not slay and cards that are not played.
Patricia Carleon wanders in, half singing and half chanting. She has the look of someone who lives partly in a story. She asks who he is, and he answers that the rhyme is the language of the fairies.
Patricia objects that fairies should be small, and he is tall. His reply is the best speech in the prelude. Old women have taught people that fairies are too small to be seen, he says. The truth is that they are too mighty to be seen. They are elder gods, each one larger than the world, with heads above the stars. People search for them in acorns and on toadstools and wonder why they never find one.
He has taken the size of a man, he says, because he wants to speak with a woman. Patricia draws back in awe. Then the scene fades into the Duke's drawing room.
Yet his grand speech comes with a nonsense rhyme. The evening will test the two against each other.
The play begins with a wonder offered and accepted, and everything after asks what that wonder is worth.
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A rector and a doctor find common ground
Act One begins in the drawing room of a duke.
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The wizard walks in wearing evening dress
The Duke himself arrives, a hearty man in tweeds with a wandering eye.
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The Conjurer explains himself to Patricia
Act Two opens an hour later in a brighter room.
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Morris wants to expose every old miracle
Morris strides in wearing evening dress and goes straight to the conjuring table.
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A forged banknote does not disprove money
Smith asks the others to return to the argument that the quarrel has interrupted.
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Belief and doubt can each become a madness
The second act closes with a quiet argument between Smith and the Doctor.
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A comedy of silences with a serious centre
Chesterton tells the story as a comedy of manners that slowly darkens.
Read all 8 key ideas now
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Characters, plot and themes
Main characters
- Patricia Carleon A dreamy, dark haired girl who walks the wet grounds at twilight and wants to believe that a wizard has chosen to speak with her.
- The Stranger, the Conjurer A worn, quick witted performer in a pointed hood who enjoys a fairy tale he never meant to tell, and wants to be trusted.
- Morris Carleon Patricia's brother, a young Irish mine manager back from America, who wants to protect her and prove that every mystery has a mechanical cause.
- The Duke A hearty, kindly host who wants everyone to be pleased and so answers every question with a cheerful, unrelated remark.
- Doctor Grimthorpe An old fashioned family doctor who trusts his red lamp and science, and wants the household calm and healthy.
- The Reverend Cyril Smith A young High Church rector who wants a model public house and defends the right of every person to the benefit of the doubt.
- Hastings The Duke's patient secretary, who wants the household's business kept in order despite his employer's habits.
How it ends (spoiler)
The Conjurer admits that he did the last trick by genuine magic, working with evil spirits he once dabbled with, and he is horrified at it. Patricia tells him she never believed he was a magician, only a man, and she accepts his offer of marriage. He sends the spirits away and tells Morris a lie, a natural explanation for the trick, which cures him. He refuses to share the lie with the others, who would believe it too. Patricia says their fairy tale has ended by coming true.
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Вопросы о книге Magic
What is the play Magic by G. K. Chesterton about?
It follows one evening in a duke's drawing room, when a girl who believes in fairies meets a hooded stranger who is a conjurer. Her sceptical brother, a rector and a doctor argue about belief, trickery and miracles.
Who is the Stranger in Magic?
He first appears in a cloak and pointed hood as a wizard in the woods. He then throws off the costume and says he is the Conjurer, a performer hired by the Duke to entertain the household.
What does the red lamp mean in Magic?
The red lamp over the Doctor's door stands for solid, practical science and the everyday world. Characters keep returning to it as a contrast with fairies, stars and the twilight, and it changes during the evening.
When was Magic written and is it a true story?
It is an invented play written by Chesterton in the early twentieth century. It is a comedy set in a duke's house in England, with fictional characters who debate real questions about faith and doubt.
Is Magic easy to read?
It is a short play set in one room, with quick, funny dialogue. The Duke's absurd remarks and the clear arguments between the rector, the doctor and the Conjurer make it simple to follow aloud.
Как сослаться на это издание
Chesterton, G. K. Magic. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/magic.
Chesterton, G. K. (2026). Magic. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/magic (Original work published 1913)
Chesterton, G. K. Magic. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/magic.
@book{chesterton2026magic,
author = {Chesterton, G. K.},
title = {Magic},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/magic},
note = {First published 1913}
}
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