The Last of the Peterkins: With Others of Their Kin

In Short

This episodic nineteenth-century satire follows the famously scatterbrained Peterkin family as they attempt to broaden their horizons through travel, only to be scattered across Europe, Africa, and Asia by their own staggering ineptitude. Accompanied by standalone tales of their equally misguided relatives, the narrative captures a series of domestic misadventures, from disastrous dinner parties and ill-advised sleigh rides to getting lost inside the Great Pyramid. The book has endured because its lighthearted mockery of human folly, misplaced academic ambition, and overcomplicated problem-solving remains instantly recognizable and universally funny.

The Story

The domestic troubles of the Peterkin family begin at home, where even the simplest ambition requires immense exertion and yields little result. When Elizabeth Eliza is tasked with reading an essay before the Circumambient Club, she spends months paralyzed by the lack of a suitable topic, eventually producing a convoluted paper on the impossibility of studying the sun. Similar logic governs their daily life: Elizabeth Eliza continuously sits on the sunny side of train cars through flawed astronomical calculations, and a family outing for maple sugar devolves into a logistical mess involving an over-stuffed wood-sled, an uninvited Christmas tree, and eight stray schoolboys.

Hoping to refine themselves, the Peterkins plan a grand voyage to Egypt. Their departure is characteristically chaotic. Elizabeth Eliza misses her packing because she is busy buying canary birds to release near Portugal, while Agamemnon misses the family’s departure entirely when he wanders off in New York to join a party bound for Greece. Undeterred, the remaining Peterkins press on, though Mrs. Peterkin immediately loses the name of their international banker because she left her old notebook at home. Upon reaching Alexandria, she must rely on transatlantic telegrams to their long-suffering mentor, the Lady from Philadelphia, to navigate basic survival.

The family’s separation compounds across continents. While Mrs. Peterkin and the little boys journey up the Nile, Elizabeth Eliza explores the interior of the Great Pyramid in search of ancient mummies, only to collide in a dark passage with Mr. Peterkin, who has also been wandering aimlessly. Meanwhile, cryptic and mis-translated telegrams lead them to suspect that Solomon John is waiting for them in Athens, prompting plans to navigate the Volga River to meet him. Back in America, their extended kin experience parallel absurdities: a relative meticulously records her daily household chores in a diary while her house burns to the ground, a young girl accidentally fills her bedroom to the ceiling with chocolate creams using a magical wish, and five young boys lock themselves in an abandoned house during a storm, convincing themselves they are under a heroic military siege. The novel leaves the main family hilariously dispersed across the globe—Agamemnon in Madagascar, Solomon John in Bulgaria, Elizabeth Eliza lost in the Russian language, and the parents vanished beyond Tobolsk—permanently unable to master the simple mechanics of daily life.

How It Unfolds

Elizabeth Eliza writes a paper Joining the Circumambient Club, Elizabeth Eliza struggles to produce an essay, finally writing a bizarre treatise on how local house architecture prevents anyone from properly observing the sun.

The Peterkins practise travelling In preparation for their foreign voyage, the family embarks on local trips that go wildly awry, including an excursion for maple sugar on a melting wood-sled loaded with extra schoolboys and an old Christmas tree.

Mrs. Peterkin in Egypt Arriving in Alexandria without knowing the name of her husband's foreign banker, Mrs. Peterkin panics at the sights and sounds of the port and must telegraph the Lady from Philadelphia for basic guidance.

Mrs. Peterkin faints on the Great Pyramid While exploring the interior passages of the Great Pyramid, Mrs. Peterkin and Elizabeth Eliza unexpectedly bump into Mr. Peterkin, who is being maneuvered through the narrow stone hatches by local guides.

Lucilla's diary Back in the United States, a pragmatic relative keeps a dry journal detailing rural household chores, casually omitting the fact that her children accidentally burned their entire house down with matches.

Carrie's three wishes A young girl is granted three magical wishes by a visiting Governor and immediately wastes the first by demanding her bedroom be filled to the ceiling with chocolate creams.

"Where can those boys be?" Five schoolboys enter an empty house to study Latin, accidentally lock themselves in, and spend days holding out against an imaginary siege while eating gingerbread and wearing coal-hods as helmets.

The People

• Elizabeth Eliza Peterkin wants to be cultured, intellectually accomplished, and prepared for society. What stands in her way is her complete inability to apply practical logic to basic situations, whether she is selecting a train seat or writing an essay. She ends up separated from her family, overwhelmed by the complexities of the Russian language.

• Mrs. Peterkin wants safety, routine, and the reassuring presence of her family. Her overwhelming anxiety and total reliance on external guidance prevent her from navigating the world independently. She ends up swept along on a perilous global itinerary, perpetually bewildered by foreign customs and logistics.

• Mr. Peterkin wants to guide his family with paternal wisdom and embark on ambitious educational journeys. His utter lack of foresighted planning and tendency to make absurd excuses stand in his way. He ends up wandering through global landmarks like the Pyramids and ancient ruins, red-faced and dependent on local guides to haul him along.

• Agamemnon Peterkin wants to pursue scholarly knowledge and join academic expeditions. His easily distracted nature and poor sense of timing keep him from remaining with his family. He ends up left behind in New York and eventually wanders off to Madagascar.

• Solomon John Peterkin wants adventure and practical action. He is continually derailed by the family's joint misunderstandings and chaotic travel itineraries, ultimately winding up isolated in Rustchuk.

In Its Own Voice

"A careful inquiry and close observation, such as have been called for in preparation of this paper, have developed the fact that not a single house in this town faces the sunset!"

Elizabeth Eliza presents this absurdity to her literary club as a profound scientific discovery after searching the town with notebooks.

"I reached the train in plenty of season, and might have picked out my seat, but then there was nobody there to show where most of the people would go."

Recording her daily thoughts in her commonplace-book, Elizabeth Eliza struggles to determine which side of the train car will keep her out of the sun.

"She had brought a new one for her travels. She was sorry now she had not kept the old book. This, however, was not of so much importance, as it did not contain the name of the Paris banker..."

Mrs. Peterkin realizes in Egypt that she has left the name of their international bank behind in America, written in a notebook she chose not to bring.

What It's Really About

Beneath its slapstick domestic comedy, the book satirizes the nineteenth-century American obsession with self-improvement, intellectual societies, and foreign travel. It targets the gap between academic pretension and practical common sense. The Peterkins buy encyclopedias, attend lectures on physics, and join literary clubs, yet they cannot figure out how to keep cold water from cracking a glass pitcher or how to board a train without getting sunburned.

The narrative also pokes fun at over-complicated problem-solving. Rather than using simple logic, the family constantly seeks elaborate remedies or relies blindly on outside authorities like the Lady from Philadelphia. Through the absurd fates of the characters, the text suggests that no amount of grand ambition or formal education can substitute for basic everyday wisdom.

Why Read It Today

This book remains a delightful discovery for readers who enjoy quiet, dry satire and episodic Victorian humor. It carries a charming lightheartedness that feels remarkably modern, mocking the universal human tendency to overthink simple problems and make life far more complicated than it needs to be.

The prose is straightforward, crisp, and clean, free of heavy archaic dialect or daunting structural complexity. Its brevity and episodic nature make it an easy, engaging read. Some modern readers might find the narrative structure somewhat disjointed, as the second half shifts away from the core Peterkin family to highlight their distant relatives through separate short stories and verses. Additionally, the depiction of foreign lands like Egypt reflects typical nineteenth-century tourist perspectives, viewing unfamiliar cultures through a lens of chaos and exoticism.

Yet the heart of the book—the absurd, affectionate portrait of a family completely out of their depth—remains utterly timeless. It leaves you with a lingering smile and a gentle reminder not to take your own intellectual ambitions too seriously.