summary of Dead Poets Society by N.H kleinbaum in 1959 the story takes place at the well-known Vermont boarding school Welton Academy as the school year starts we meet Todd Anderson a shy new student who has moved from another school as well as Neil Perry Richard Cameron and Charlie Dalton who are all juniors Neil Perry is a nice and friendly student who lives with Todd Neil is afraid of his father Mr Perry who wants Neil to study chemistry go to Harvard and become a doctor Richard Cameron is a strict rule following student who hates breaking them on the other hand Charlie Dalton is a laid-back Reckless student who loves breaking them knocks Overstreet who is also at Wilton and is a friend of Niels goes to dinner with the danburys who are family friends during dinner he meets Chris Noel the Danbury sunshet's beautiful girlfriend Knox falls in love right away but he doesn't know what to do about it classes begin at Wilton most of the teachers are very strict and hard to please but John Keating the new English teacher at school is different heating's classes are charismatic and full of energy in the first one he even stands on his desk to talk to his students heating starts the Year by talking about Carpe Diem this is the idea that people should seize the day or make the most of Life while they are living heating says that this year he will teach his kids how to be extraordinary instead of just how to follow the rules heating's odd ways of teaching get some attention from his co-workers but because he is smart and likable Gail Nolan the Headmaster of Welton stays on his good side Neil tries to become friends with Todd but Todd is too shy and quiet things start to change when Neil finds an old yearbook in it he reads that John Keating was once a student at Welton and was in a group called The Dead Poets Society Neil and his friends ask Keating about the Dead Poets heating tells them that the Dead Poets read poetry and honored life in a cave near Welton Neil finds a Dead Poet's book of old poems in his room later he thinks it was put there by Keating Neil talks Knox Cameron Charlie and Todd into going to the cave with him there they read from the poetry book and become more and more moved by the beauty of the lines heating asks his students to write songs in his class at first Todd can't write anything he's comfortable reading in front of the other students but with keating's help he comes up with a great song about Walt Whitman who is keating's hero after that both with his peers and with Keating Todd starts to let his guard down he tells Neil that he thinks his parents don't love him because they are so hard on him and clearly like his bigger brother more Neil understands Todd's troubles because they are similar to his own Neil is also inspired by keating's lessons to try out for a local production of A Midsummer Night's Dream where he gets the lead role of Puck much to his Delight the students efforts to seize the day which were inspired by Keating get more and more risky and stupid Charlie Dalton writes a piece for the school paper that says women should be allowed to attend Welton he signs it the Dead Poets Charlie comes forward and says he wrote the story to protect his classmates Nolan beats him but Charlie doesn't tell Nolan anything about the Dead Poets Society meanwhile Chris and Chet asked Knox to a party at the party Knox gets very drunk and touches Chris's breasts he tells himself that he's just seizing the day but this makes Chet very angry heating tries to teach his students how to be realistic survive college and lie their way through essays about bad books that aren't worth reading because of their crazy behavior and Nolan's suspicions about him Neil is going to be in a play called A Midsummer Night's Dream when Mr Perry finds out about this he is angry and tells Neil he can't be in the play Neil goes to Keating for help because he doesn't know what to do heating tells Neil that he should talk to his dad and show him how much he loves acting Neil can't bring himself to talk to his father but he tells Keating that Mr Perry did let him perform after all Knox goes to Chris's school to tell her he loves her by reading her a poem he wrote for her later Chris goes to Welton to see Knox and tells him that Chet will kill him for what he's done Knox begs Chris to go see A Midsummer Night's Dream with him saying that he won't try to see her again if she doesn't enjoy it Chris agrees but not eagerly Chris Knox Keating and the other Dead Poets go to A Midsummer Night's Dream to see Neil perform Neil is great as Puck which makes everyone happy especially Todd during the show Chris starts to like Knox and later that night she kisses him but after the show Mr Perry seems to talk to Neil he brings Neil home and tells him that he'll be going to a tough military school from now on it's clear that Welton is trying to keep Neil from his goals of becoming a doctor Neil is so upset by this news that he uses his father's gun to kill himself late at night Neil killed himself so Mr Perry has asked for a probe into what happened Cameron exposes the Dead Poets Society when he goes to Nolan and tells him about the group Nolan uses Cameron's information to make Keating the scapegoat by accusing Keating of corrupting Neil with talk of freedom and individuality Nolan hopes to avoid a full-scale scandal with welton's Rich alumni donors one by one the students are brought to Nolan's office and made to sign a document saying that keating's lessons on free thought made them bad people and made Neal kill himself most of the Dead Poets sign the document but Todd refuses to do so because of this Nolan puts Todd on tight probation even though Todd is loyal to Keating he is fired from Wilton and can't really teach again in the last part the students go to English class where the boring Headmaster Nolan is now the teacher heating walks in to get his things in the middle of the lesson Todd runs up to Keating as he is getting his things together and tells him that Nolan made the students sign the paper that got Keating fired heating smiles and nods to show that he knows what is being said Todd stands on his desk just like Keating did in his first class at Welton slowly and even though Nolan told them to stop the other students joined Todd in a touching show of support for Keating about the author Nancy kleinbaum went to Northwestern University to study English she worked as a freelance writer and journalist for a number of magazines in the 1970s and 1980s in 1989 she was asked to write a novelization of the famous Robin Williams movie Dead Poets Society kleinbaum was asked to turn a draft of the movie script into a short novel her version of the story was published a few months before the movie came out kleinbaum has written many other books most of which are for children or are novelizations of other pictures she writes for a lot of different papers right now and she lives in New York with her husband and children hope we summarized it fully and you liked it please hit the like button and subscribe to our channel so that we are motivated to create more videos