The Piano-Tuner by Barry Pain (1923)
A young man named John is the protagonist of this novella. He is a piano tuner who has been employed to tune a grand piano at a large estate. As he works, he becomes increasingly obsessed with the sound of the piano and begins to question his own existence. The story explores themes of identity, alienation, and the search for meaning in life.
By Barry Pain · First published 1923 · Genre: Fiction, Mystery, Suspense · 2 chapters · 2,791 words
First lines
Miss Caterham was forty-five, and said so, and looked it. She wore black cashmere in the afternoon, and black silk in the evening. She was methodical, and professed a hatred of all nonsense. She liked to take care of everything and to avoid using it. Also, though fundamentally kind-hearted, she was firm even to the point of obstinacy. Her ideas were old-fashioned, and she had only hatred and contempt for any other ideas. She kept fowls and understood them completely. She also kept her orphan niece, Ruth Caterham, and understood her less completely. Indisputably she loved the fowls much less than she loved her niece, but the fowls had comparatively the greater liberty. She maintained a decent, upper-middle-class state in a Georgian house, on the confines of a little town that thoroughly respected her. It was not a suburb. It was too far from London for that. The best trains took forty minutes. Miss Caterham was rather acidulated about suburban people.
What this Textopian page supports
The Piano-Tuner is listed on Textopian as a short story by Barry Pain, dated 1923 CE.
This source record anchors work identity, reading entry points, and catalog context for checking claims about the work.
- Work type: Short story
- Author: Barry Pain
- Date: 1923 CE
- Language: English
- Genres: Fiction, Mystery, Suspense, Crime, Thriller
- Length: 2,791 words
- Structure: 2 chapters, 65 paragraphs
- Reading fit: Easy (6th Grade)
Good citation fit
- Work identity for The Piano-Tuner by Barry Pain
- Canonical title URL and first readable passage URL
- Genre and topic classification from the Textopian catalog
- Readability and classroom-planning context
- Passage-specific claims should cite the exact /read/ URL for the relevant chapter or paragraph
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Genres
- Fiction — The Piano-Tuner is a work of imagination set in a created reality, that doesn't actually exist, but is believable.
- Mystery — The book involves the mysterious disappearance of a piano tuner, making it fall into the mystery genre.
- Suspense — The narrative has elements of suspense with the unfolding mystery around the piano tuner.
- Crime — The book features investigations around the piano tuner's disappearance, contributing to the crime genre.
Tags
loneliness · isolation · piano · tuning · music · emotions · feelings · desire · longing · yearning · passion · obsession