Plot summary
The novel begins with the telling of Humphrey Place saying "No" at the altar where he was due to marry Dixie Morse. Humphrey's immoral behaviour is assumed to be a result of his recent association with Dougal Douglas, a Scottish migrant who has since left the area of Peckham.
Spark goes on to tell us the entire story of what exactly happened during Dougal's residence in Peckham. From his inaugural meeting with Mr V. R. Druce, head of nylon textiles manufacturers Meadows, Meade & Grindley, we learn that Dougal is employed to bridge the gap between industry and the arts. He befriends employees Merle Coverdale (who is in fact indulging in an unromantic, immoral affair with the married Mr Druce) and Elaine Kent, an "experienced controller of process", as well as Humphrey Place, a refrigerator engineer.
After finding lodgings with Miss Belle Frierne (where Humphrey Place also resides), and splitting up with his fiancé Jinny due to her being ill (his "fatal flaw" is that he cannot bear anyone who is ill), Dougal embarks upon a mission of disruption throughout Peckham. Throughout this he falls foul of typist Dixie Morse and electrician Trevor Lomas and becomes the target of a gang consisting of Trevor, Collie Gould and Leslie Crewe.
Throughout his stay in Peckham, Dougal carries out "human research" on the "moral character" of the people of the area. As well as working for Meadows, Meade & Grindley, he also works for their rivals, the more prosperous Drover Willis's textile manufacturers (under the pseudonym Douglas Dougal), as well as working as a ghost writer for the retired actress and singer Maria Cheeseman. Only Nelly Mahone recognises Dougal for the manipulative "double-tongued" rogue he is, but no one listens to her as everyone views her as a drunken Irish vagrant.
The culmination of Dougal's antics results in his landlady Miss Frierne having a stroke, Mr Druce killing his mistress Merle Coverdale by stabbing her in the neck with a corkscrew, and the rejection of marriage to Dixie Morse at the altar by Humphrey Place. In the penultimate chapter Dougal attacks Trevor and, despite injury, Dougal manages to leave Peckham. The novel ends with the marriage of Humphrey Place and Dixie Morse, two months after the original, aborted wedding. The final scene shows Peckham in a state of transcendence, not shown anywhere else in the novel, and is seen as a transfiguration of the commonplace world.
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