Plot summaries

The Picture of Dorian Gray by O. Wilde

The Picture of Dorian Gray begins on a beautiful summer day in Victorian era England, where Lord Henry Wotton, an
opinionated man, is observing the sensitive artist Basil Hallward painting the portrait of Dorian Gray, a handsome
young man who is Basil's ultimate muse. While sitting for the painting, Dorian listens to Lord Henry espousing his
hedonistic world view, and begins to think that beauty is the only aspect of life worth pursuing. This prompts Dorian to
wish that the painted image of himself would age in his stead.
Under the hedonist influence of Lord Henry, Dorian fully explores his sensuality. He discovers the actress Sibyl Vane,
who performs Shakespeare plays in a dingy, working-class theatre. Dorian approaches and courts her, and soon
proposes marriage. The enamoured Sibyl calls him "Prince Charming", and swoons with the happiness of being loved,
but her protective brother, James, a sailor, warns that if "Prince Charming" harms her, he will kill Dorian Gray.
Dorian invites Basil and Lord Henry to see Sibyl perform in Romeo and Juliet. Sibyl, whose only knowledge of love
was love of the theatre, forgoes her acting career for the experience of true love with Dorian Gray. Disheartened at her
quitting the stage, Dorian rejects Sibyl, telling her that acting was her beauty; without that, she no longer interests him.
On returning home, Dorian notices that the portrait has changed; his wish has come true, and the man in the portrait
bears a subtle sneer of cruelty.
Conscience-stricken and lonely, Dorian decides to reconcile with Sibyl, but he is too late, as Lord Henry informs him
that Sibyl killed herself by swallowing prussic acid. Dorian then understands that, where his life is headed, lust and
good looks shall suffice. In the following eighteen years, Dorian experiments with every vice, influenced by a morally
poisonous French novel, a gift received from the decadent Lord Henry Wotton.
One night, before leaving for Paris, Basil goes to Dorian's house to ask him about rumours of his self-indulgent
sensualism. Dorian does not deny his debauchery, and takes Basil to a locked room to see the portrait, made hideous by
Dorian's corruption. In anger, Dorian blames his fate on Basil, and stabs him dead. Dorian then calmly blackmails an
old friend, the scientist Alan Campbell, into using his knowledge of chemistry to destroy the body of Basil Hallward.
To escape the guilt of his crime, Dorian goes to an opium den, where James Vane is unknowingly present. Upon hearing
someone refer to Dorian as "Prince Charming", James seeks out and tries to shoot Dorian dead. In their confrontation,
Dorian deceives James into believing that he is too young to have known Sibyl, who killed herself eighteen years
earlier, as his face is still that of a young man. James relents and releases Dorian, but is then approached by a woman
from the opium den who reproaches James for not killing Dorian. She confirms that the man was Dorian Gray and
explains that he has not aged in eighteen years; understanding too late, James runs after Dorian, who has gone.
One evening, during dinner at home, Dorian spies James stalking the grounds of the house. Dorian fears for his life.
Days later, during a shooting party, one of the hunters accidentally shoots and kills James Vane who was lurking in a
thicket. On returning to London, Dorian tells Lord Henry that he will be good from then on; his new probity begins with
not breaking the heart of the naïve Hetty Merton, his current romantic interest. Dorian wonders if his new-found
goodness has reverted the corruption in the picture, but sees only an uglier image of himself. From that, Dorian
understands that his true motives for the self-sacrifice of moral reformation were the vanity and curiosity of his quest
for new experiences.
Deciding that only full confession will absolve him of wrongdoing, Dorian decides to destroy the last vestige of his
conscience. Enraged, he takes the knife with which he murdered Basil Hallward, and stabs the picture. The servants of
the house awaken on hearing a cry from the locked room; on the street, passers-by who also heard the cry fetch the
police. On entering the locked room, the servants find an unknown old man, stabbed in the heart, his face and figure
withered and decrepit. The servants identify the disfigured corpse by the rings on his fingers to belong to their master;
beside him is the picture of Dorian Gray, reverted to its original beauty.

Dubliners by J. Joyce
"The Sisters" – After the priest Father Flynn dies, a young boy who was close to him and his family deal with his death
superficially.
"An Encounter" – Two schoolboys playing truant encounter an elderly man.
"Araby" – A boy falls in love with the sister of his friend, but fails in his quest to buy her a worthy gift from the Araby
bazaar.
"Eveline" – A young woman weighs her decision to flee Ireland with a sailor.
"After the Race" – College student Jimmy Doyle tries to fit in with his wealthy friends.
"Two Gallants" – Two con men, Lenehan and Corley, find a maid who is willing to steal from her employer.
"The Boarding House" – Mrs Mooney successfully manoeuvres her daughter Polly into an upwardly mobile marriage
with her lodger Mr Doran.
"A Little Cloud" – Little Chandler's dinner with his old friend Ignatius Gallaher casts fresh light on his own failed
literary dreams. The story also reflects on Chandler's mood upon realising that his baby son has replaced him as the
centre of his wife's affections.
"Counterparts" – Farrington, a lumbering alcoholic scrivener, takes out his frustration in pubs and on his son Tom.
"Clay" – The old maid Maria, a laundress, celebrates Halloween with her former foster child Joe Donnelly and his
family.
"A Painful Case" – Mr Duffy rebuffs Mrs Sinico, then, four years later, realises that he has condemned her to loneliness
and death.
"Ivy Day in the Committee Room" – Minor politicians fail to live up to the memory of Charles Stewart Parnell.
"A Mother" – Mrs Kearney tries to win a place of pride for her daughter, Kathleen, in the Irish cultural movement, by
starring her in a series of concerts, but ultimately fails.
"Grace" – After Mr Kernan injures himself falling down the stairs in a bar, his friends try to reform him through
Catholicism.
"The Dead" – Gabriel Conroy attends a party, and later, as he speaks with his wife, has an epiphany about the nature of
life and death. At 15–16,000 words this story has also been classified as a novella. The Dead was adapted into a film by
John Huston, written for the screen by his son Tony and starring his daughter Anjelica as Mrs. Conroy.

Mrs. Dalloway by V. Woolf

Clarissa Dalloway goes around London in the morning, getting ready to host a party that evening. The nice day reminds
her of her youth spent in the countryside in Bourton and makes her wonder about her choice of husband; she married
the reliable Richard Dalloway instead of the enigmatic and demanding Peter Walsh, and she "had not the option" to be
with Sally Seton. Peter reintroduces these conflicts by paying a visit that morning.
Septimus Warren Smith, a First World War veteran suffering from deferred traumatic stress, spends his day in the park
with his Italian-born wife Lucrezia, where Peter Walsh observes them. Septimus is visited by frequent and
indecipherablehallucinations, mostly concerning his dear friend Evans who died in the war. Later that day, after he is
prescribed involuntary commitment to a psychiatric hospital, he commits suicide by jumping out of a window.
Clarissa's party in the evening is a slow success. It is attended by most of the characters she has met in the book,
including people from her past. She hears about Septimus' suicide at the party and gradually comes to admire this
stranger's act, which she considers an effort to preserve the purity of his happiness.

Women in Love by D.H. Lawrence

Ursula and Gudrun Brangwen are two sisters living in the Midlands of England in the 1910s. Ursula is a teacher,
Gudrun an artist. They meet two men who live nearby, school inspector Rupert Birkin and coal-mine heir Gerald Crich.
The four become friends. Ursula and Birkin become involved, and Gudrun eventually begins a love affair with Gerald.
All four are deeply concerned with questions of society, politics, and the relationship between men and women. At a
party at Gerald's estate, Gerald's sister Diana drowns. Gudrun becomes the teacher and mentor of his youngest sister.
Soon Gerald's coal-mine-owning father dies as well, after a long illness. After the funeral, Gerald goes to Gudrun's
house and spends the night with her, while her parents are asleep in another room.
Birkin asks Ursula to marry him, and she agrees. Gerald and Gudrun's relationship, however, becomes stormy. The four
holiday in the Alps. Gudrun begins an intense friendship with Loerke, a physically puny but emotionally commanding
artist from Dresden. Gerald, enraged by Loerke and most of all by Gudrun's verbal abuse and rejection of his manhood,
and driven by the internal violence of his own self, tries to strangle Gudrun. Before he has killed her, however, he
realises that this is not what he wants, and he leaves Gudrun and Loerke and climbs the mountain, eventually slipping
into a snowy valley where he falls asleep and freezes to death.
The impact on Birkin of Gerald's death is profound; the novel ends a few weeks after Gerald's death, with Birkin trying
to explain to Ursula that he needs Gerald as he needs her—her for the perfect relationship with a woman, and Gerald for
the perfect relationship with a man.

The French Lieutenant’s Woman by J. Fowles

Set in the mid-nineteenth century, the narrator identifies the novel's protagonist as Sarah Woodruff, the Woman of the
title, also known as "Tragedy" and as "The French Lieutenant's Whore". She lives in the coastal town of Lyme Regis as
a disgraced woman, supposedly abandoned by a French ship's officer named Varguennes who had returned to France
and married. She spends some of her limited free time on The Cobb, a stone jetty where she stares out the sea.
One day, Charles Smithson, an orphaned gentleman, and Ernestina Freeman, his fiancée and a daughter of a wealthy
tradesman, see Sarah walking along the cliffside. Ernestina tells Charles something of Sarah's story, and he becomes
curious about her. Though continuing to court Ernestina, Charles has several more encounters with Sarah, meeting her
clandestinely three times. During these meetings, Sarah tells Charles of her history, and asks for his emotional and
social support. During the same period, he learns of the possible loss of place as heir to his elderly uncle, who has
become engaged to a woman young enough to bear a child. Meanwhile, Charles's servant Sam falls in love with Mary,
the maid of Ernestina's aunt.
In fact, Charles has fallen in love with Sarah and advises her to leave Lyme for Exeter. Returning from a journey to
warn Ernestina's father about his uncertain inheritance, Charles stops in Exeter as if to visit Sarah. From there, the
narrator, who intervenes throughout the novel and later becomes a character in it, offers three different ways in which
the novel could end:
First ending: Charles does not visit Sarah, but immediately returns to Lyme to reaffirm his love for Ernestina. They
marry, though the marriage never becomes particularly happy, and Charles enters trade under Ernestina's father, Mr.
Freeman. The narrator pointedly notes the lack of knowledge about Sarah's fate. Charles tells Ernestina about an
encounter which he implies is with the "French Lieutenant's Whore", but elides the sordid details, and the matter is
ended. The narrator dismisses this ending as a daydream by Charles, before the alternative events of the subsequent
meeting with Ernestina are described. Critic Michelle Phillips Buchberger describes this first ending as "a semblance of
verisimilitude in the traditional 'happy ending'" found in actual Victorian novels.
Before the second and third endings, the narrator appears as a character sharing a railway compartment with Charles.
He tosses a coin to determine the order in which he will portray the other two possible endings, emphasising their equal
plausibility. They are as follows:
Second ending: Charles and Sarah have a rash sexual encounter in which Charles realises that Sarah was a virgin.
Reflecting on his emotions during this, Charles ends his engagement to Ernestina, and proposes to Sarah through a
letter. Charles's servant Sam fails to deliver the letter and, after Charles breaks his engagement, Ernestina's father
disgraces him. His uncle marries and his wife bears an heir, ensuring the loss of the expected inheritance. To escape the
social suicide and depression caused by his broken engagement, Charles goes abroad to Europe and America. Ignorant
of Charles' proposal, Sarah flees to London without telling her lover. During Charles' trips abroad, his lawyer searches
for Sarah, finding her two years later living in the Chelsea house of the painter and poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti, where
she enjoys an artistic, creative life. Sarah shows Charles the child of their affair, leaving him in hope that the three may
be reunited.

Third ending: The narrator re-appears outside the house at 16 Cheyne Walk and turns back his pocket watch by fifteen
minutes. Events are the same as in the second-ending version until Charles meets Sarah, when their reunion is sour. The
new ending does not make clear the parentage of the child and Sarah expresses no interest in reviving the relationship.
Charles leaves the house, intending to return to the United States, wondering whether Sarah is a manipulative, lying
woman who exploited him.

Brighton Rock by G. Greene

Charles "Fred" Hale comes to Brighton on assignment to anonymously distribute cards for a newspaper competition
(this is a variant of "Lobby Lud" in which the name of the person to be spotted is "Kolley Kibber"). The antihero of the
novel, Pinkie Brown, is a teenage sociopath and up-and-coming gangster. Hale had betrayed the former leader of the
gang Pinkie now controls, by writing an article in the Daily Messenger about a slot machine racket for which the gang
was responsible. Ida Arnold, a plump, kind-hearted, and decent woman, is drawn into the action by a chance meeting
with the terrified Hale after he has been threatened by Pinkie's gang. After being chased through the streets and lanes of
Brighton, Hale accidentally meets Ida again on the Palace Pier, but eventually Pinkie murders Hale. Pinkie's subsequent
attempts to cover his tracks and remove evidence of Hale's Brighton visit lead to a chain of fresh crimes and to Pinkie's
ill-fated marriage to a waitress called Rose, who unknowingly has the power to destroy his alibi. Ida decides to pursue
Pinkie relentlessly, because she believes it is the right thing to do, as well as to protect Rose from the deeply disturbed
boy she has married.
Although ostensibly an underworld thriller, the book also deals with Roman Catholic doctrine concerning the nature of
sin and the basis of morality. Pinkie and Rose are Catholics, as was Greene, and their beliefs are contrasted with Ida's
strong but non-religious moral sensibility. Greene alludes significantly to the French Catholic writer Péguy in Brighton
Rock, in relation to ideas about damnation and mercy, and in The Lawless Roads he refers to "Péguy challenging God in
the cause of the damned".
The Sea, the Sea by I. Murdoch
The Sea, the Sea is a tale of the strange obsessions that haunt a self-satisfied playwright and director as he begins to
write his memoirs. Murdoch's novel exposes the motivations that drive her characters – the vanity, jealousy, and lack of
compassion behind the disguises they present to the world. Charles Arrowby, its central figure, decides to withdraw
from the world and live in seclusion in a house by the sea. While there, he encounters his first love, Mary Hartley Fitch,
whom he has not seen since his love affair with her as an adolescent. Although she is almost unrecognisable in old age,
and outside his theatrical world, he becomes obsessed by her, idealizing his former relationship with her and attempting
to persuade her to elope with him. His inability to recognise the egotism and selfishness of his own romantic ideals is at
the heart of the novel. After the farcical and abortive kidnapping of Mrs. Fitch by Arrowby, he is left to mull over her
rejection in a self-obsessional and self-aggrandising manner over the space of several chapters. "How much, I see as I
look back, I read into it all, reading my own dream text and not looking at the reality... Yes of course I was in love with
my own youth... Who is one's first love?"

A Handful of Dust by E. Waugh

Tony Last is a country gentleman, living with his wife Brenda and his eight-year-old son John Andrew in his ancestral
home, Hetton Abbey. The house is a Victorian reconstruction in ersatz Gothic style, described in local guide books as
devoid of architectural interest but is nevertheless Tony's pride and joy. Entirely content with the simple country life, he
is seemingly unaware of Brenda's increasing boredom and dissatisfaction, and of his son's developing waywardness.
When Brenda meets John Beaver, a social parasite controlled by his unscrupulous property-developing mother, she is
quickly captivated by his superficial metropolitan gloss, and the two begin anaffair. Brenda starts spending her weeks in
London, and persuades Tony to finance a small flat, which she rents from Mrs Beaver. Although the Brenda–Beaver
liaison is well known among London's society crowd, Tony remains oblivious; attempts by Brenda's friends to
compromise him into a relationship with the glamorous and promiscuous Jenny Abdul Akhbar are unsuccessful.
Brenda is in London when John Andrew is killed in a riding accident. On being told that "John is dead", Brenda at first
thinks that Beaver has died; on learning that it is her son John, she betrays her true feelings by uttering an involuntary
"Thank God!". Thereafter she shows little emotion, and when the funeral is over tells Tony that she wants a divorce so
that she can marry Beaver. On learning the extent of her deception Tony is shattered, but agrees to protect Brenda's
social reputation by allowing her to divorce him, and to provide her with £500 a year. After spending an awkward
weekend in Brighton contriving divorce evidence, Tony learns that, pressed by Beaver and his mother, Brenda is now
demanding £2,000 a year—a sum that would require Tony to give up Hetton. This is too much for him, and his
disillusionment with her is complete. He withdraws from the divorce negotiations, and announces that he intends to
travel for six months. On his return, he says, Brenda may have her divorce, but without any financial settlement.
With no prospect of riches, Beaver loses interest in Brenda, who is thus left adrift and in poverty. Meanwhile, Tony has
met an explorer, Dr. Messinger, and joins him on an expedition in search of a supposed lost city in the Brazilian forest.
On the outward journey, Tony engages in a frustrated shipboard romance with Thérèse de Vitré, a young girl whose
strict Roman Catholicism causes her to shun him when he tells her he has a wife. In Brazil, Messinger proves an
incompetent organiser; he cannot control the native guides, who abandon him and Tony in the depths of the jungle.
Tony falls ill, and Messinger takes off in their canoe to find help, but is swept over a waterfall and killed.
Tony wanders in a delirium until he is rescued by Mr. Todd, an ancient settler who rules over a small community in an
inaccessible part of the jungle. Todd is at first solicitous towards Tony, and nurses him back to health. Although
illiterate, Todd owns copies of the complete novels of Charles Dickens, and Tony offers to read to him. However, when
Tony is recovered in health and asks to be helped on his way, the old man repeatedly demurs. The readings continue, but
the atmosphere becomes increasingly menacing as Tony realises he is being held against his will. When a search party
finally reaches the settlement, Todd arranges that Tony be drugged and kept hidden; he tells the party that Tony has
died, and gives them his watch to take home. When Tony awakes he learns that his hopes of rescue are gone, and that he
is condemned to read Dickens to his captor indefinitely. Back in England, Tony's death is accepted; Hetton passes to his
cousins, who erect a memorial to his memory, while Brenda resolves her situation by marrying Tony's friend Jock
Grant-Menzies.

Enduring Love by I. McEwan

On a beautiful and cloudless day, a middle-aged couple celebrate their union with a picnic. Joe Rose, aged 47, and his
long term partner Clarissa Mellon are about to open a bottle of wine when a cry interrupts them. A helium balloon, with
a ten-year-old boy in the basket and his grandfather being dragged behind it, has been ripped from its moorings. Joe
immediately joins several other men in an effort to bring the balloon to safety. In the rescue attempt one man, John
Logan, a doctor, dies.
Another of the would-be rescuers is Jed Parry. Joe and Jed exchange a passing glance, a glance which indelibly burns an
obsession into Jed's soul and has devastating consequences, for Jed suffers from de Clerambault's syndrome, a disorder
that causes the sufferer to believe that someone is in love with him or her. Delusional and dangerous, Jed gradually
wreaks havoc in Joe's life, testing the limits of his beloved rationalism, threatening Clarissa's love for him, and driving
him to frustration.
Joe goes to meet Jean Logan (John Logan's wife) at her Oxford home. Jean Logan does not want to hear about how her
husband was a hero, but Joe tells her that her husband was a brave man acting out a fatherly instinct to protect a
vulnerable child. Mrs Logan hands Joe a bag which holds a picnic, and then hands him a scarf smelling of rose-water,
and asks Joe how many doors were open on Logan's car. She accuses her dead husband of having an affair with another
woman and asks Joe to phone other people who were present at the accident to ascertain if they had seen anyone with
Logan. She says her husband was a cautious man and probably only died because he was showing off to the woman,
trying to prove his manliness, and thereby taking unnecessary risks, rather than hanging back and staying safe.
During a lunch with Clarissa and her godfather, Joe witnesses the attempted murder of a man seated at a table next to
theirs, resulting in the man being shot in the shoulder. However, Joe realises the bullet was meant for himself and the
similar composition of the group of people at the other table misled the two killers into thinking the other man was their
target. Before the hit man can deliver the fatal shot Jed Parry intervenes to save the innocent man's life before fleeing
the scene. In the subsequent police interview Joe insists that it was Jed Parry who was behind this attack, but the
detective does not believe him, possibly because Joe appears to get some of the facts of the incident incorrect. Joe
leaves dissatisfied, knowing that Jed is still out there and looking for him. Like the detective, however, Clarissa is
sceptical that Jed is stalking Joe and that Joe is in any danger. This, plus the stress Joe suffers at Jed's hands, strains their
relationship.
Fearing for his safety, Joe purchases a gun through an acquaintance, John Well. On the journey home Joe receives a
phone call from Jed Parry, who is at Joe's home with Clarissa. Upon arriving at his apartment, Joe sees Jed sitting on the
sofa with Clarissa. Jed then asks for Joe's forgiveness, before taking out a knife and pointing it at his own neck. To
prevent Jed from killing himself, Joe shoots him in the arm.
Joe and Clarissa go to meet Mrs Logan. They take her and her two infant children on a picnic next to a river, to which
they have invited the woman her husband was suspected of having an affair with. It turns out that on the day of the
balloon accident the young woman had been with a university lecturer, thirty years her senior, with whom she was
having a secret relationship; Dr Logan had simply offered them both a ride after the lecturer's car had broken down. The
novel ends with the two Logan children and Joe beside the river, Joe telling the children a story about how the river is
made up of many particles.
In the first of the novel's appendices (a medical report on Jed's condition) we learn that Joe and Clarissa are eventually
reconciled, and that they adopt a child. In the second appendix (a letter from Jed to Joe) we learn that even after three
years Jed remains uncured and is now living in a psychiatric hospital.

Saturday by I. McEwan

The book follows Henry Perowne, a middle-aged, successful surgeon. Five chapters chart his day and thoughts on
Saturday the 15 February 2003, the day of the demonstration against the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the largest protest in
British history. Perowne's day begins in the early morning, when he sees a burning aeroplane streak across the sky. This
casts a shadow over the rest of his day as reports on the television change and shift: is it an accident, or terrorism?
En route to his weekly squash game, a traffic diversion reminds Perowne of the anti-war protests occurring that day.
After being allowed through the diversion, he collides with another car, damaging its wing mirror. At first the driver,
Baxter, tries to extort money from him. When Perowne refuses, Baxter and his two companions become aggressive.
Noticing symptoms in Baxter's behaviour, Perowne quickly recognises the onset of Huntington's disease. Though he is
punched in the sternum, Perowne manages to escape unharmed by distracting Baxter with discussions of his disease.
Perowne goes on to his squash match, still thinking about the incident. He loses the long and contested game by a
technicality in the final set. After lunch he buys some fish from a local fishmonger for dinner. He visits his mother,
suffering from vascular dementia, who is cared for in a nursing home.
After a visit to his son's rehearsal, Perowne returns home to cook dinner, and the evening news reminds him of the
grander arc of events that surround his life. When Daisy, his daughter, arrives home from Paris, the two passionately
debate the coming war in Iraq. His father-in-law arrives next. Daisy reconciles an earlier literary disagreement that led
to a froideur with her maternal grandfather; remembering that it was he who had inspired her love of literature.
Perowne's son Theo returns next.
Rosalind, Perowne's wife, is the last to arrive home. As she enters, Baxter and an accomplice 'Nige' force their way in
armed with knives. Baxter punches the grandfather, intimidates the family and orders Daisy to strip naked. When she
does, Perowne notices that she is pregnant. Finding out she is a poet, Baxter asks her to recite a poem. Rather than one
of her own, she recites Dover Beach, which affects Baxter emotionally, effectively disarming him. Instead he becomes
enthusiastic about Perowne's renewed talk about new treatment for Huntington's disease. After his companion abandons
him, Baxter is overpowered by Perowne and Theo, and knocked unconscious after falling down the stairs. That night
Perowne is summoned to the hospital for a successful emergency operation on Baxter. Saturda ends at around 5:15 a.m.
on Sunday, after he has returned from the hospital and made love to his wife again.