The Narrator

The unnamed narrator of the story is a boy who grows up on his father's farm. His mother runs a pub out of the house. When the narrator's parents die, he is sent away to school, where he becomes a follower of the philosopher de Selby, who is widely heckled for his bizarre ideas, such as believing that the Earth is sausage-shaped. In fact, the narrator steals one of de Selby's books, and on his return to the farm, instead of working the land, he allows the crooked John Divney to run the farm and the pub so that the narrator can spend his time writing an extensive review of de Selby's works and critiques.

The narrator cannot publish his book on de Selby because he has no money and is unknown, so he allows Divney to talk him into the scheme of murdering Phillip Mathers for...