ie They are NOT coming from overseas !!
TOM BROWN'S SCHOOLDAYS
- By Thomas Hughes -
Illustrated by Leonard Huskinson
ISBN: N/A
Publisher: The Heirloom Library, London, UK
Published: 1950's
Binding: HARDcover with Dustjacket 256 pages
Condition: UNread & displayed condition! HERE in MELBOURNE! A retired display
copy as illustrated!
Edition: FIRST Heirloom Library Illustrated EDITION: 1st printing
TIGHT, SCARCE HARDCOVER WITH Dustjacket ~ IN MELBOURNE ...
WHY do ebayers buy from US?
Because you KNOW what you're getting. My close up photos are of the actual item!!
Remains UNread - it was the display copy instore then placed in storage. It is Tight - neat, no inscriptions or marks within but for foxing to page edges only - all page surfaces are spotless. Appears as in my photos - this is the exact copy!! A nicely preserved copy - superb!
No discernible shelf wear to the decorative boards themselves, the interior is tight and spotlessly clean with 256 pages surfaces (edges have some foxing). THIS copy is the FIRST Illustrated Heirloom Library EDITION: Only printing from 1950's? - the UK publishing by The Heirloom Library, London.
There are many beautiful illustrations by Leonard Huskinson.
SCARCE title - this is an UNread copy!!
Each interior page surface is still very white, some pages have foxing to page edges only (see my photos) . The dustjacket has significant foxing mainly to underside, flap edges & minor to back panel too.
The book itself is beautifully bound in shades of green decorative front panel and spine and gold spine titles - blue tint to top pages edges still strong.
In original pictorial HARDcover binding, in publisher's covers which are in the actual HARDcover itself is in excellent condition.
(Stored with 2021!)
Measures approx. 8 x 5 inches or 22 x 14cms
SYNOPSIS ....
Tom Brown's School Days is an 1857 novel by Thomas Hughes. The story is set in the 1830s at Rugby School, an English public school. Hughes attended Rugby School from 1834 to 1842. The novel was originally published as being "by an Old Boy of Rugby", and much of it is based on the author's experiences.
This wonderful tale recounts the adventures of a young English boy at Rugby School in the early nineteenth century.
Young Tom Brown comes of age in Thomas Hughes’ classic story Tom Brown’s School Days. Sent to a new private school part-way through the year, Tom Brown must navigate the complicated world of private-school pranks and alliances, and find a way to defeat the school bully, Harry Flashman.
A Victorian “school story,” Tom Brown’s School Days was highly influential on the genre,
One of the classics of English children's literature, and one of the earliest books written specifically for boys, this novel's steady popularity has given it an influence well beyond the upper middle-class world that it describes. It tells a story central to an understanding of Victorian
life, but its freshness helps to distinguish it from the narrow schoolboy adventures that it later inspired.
A Victorian “school story,” Tom Brown’s School Days was highly influential on the genre, inspiring a number of adaptations including a 2005 television movie starring Steven Fry, and the popular Flashman adventures by Scottish author George MacDonald Fraser, which follow the bully from Tom Brown, Harry Flashman, into adulthood.
A coming-of-age novel, Tom Brown's School Days deals with Brown's development as an individual as he moves schools and homes, encounters bullies, deals with sickness, and makes friends. The novel has been adapted into several films and plays. It is succeeded by the novel Tom Brown at Oxford.
About the Author
Thomas Hughes was an English lawyer and author. He is most famous for his novel Tom Brown's Schooldays (1857), a semi-autobiographical work set at Rugby School, which Hughes had attended. It had a lesser-known sequel, Tom Brown at Oxford
Very Entertaining Classic read!
Reviews
This book is really close to my heart …. I read it as a kid, and couldn't help but read and re-read it again and again ... and now again as an adult. The memories!!
An excellent boy’s coming-of-age story from the 19th century, following the adventures of young Tom Brown just before and during his schooling at Rugby. Episodic in nature, the novel's charm for me lay in its Victorian mix of nostalgia and laid back moralism- and the subjects they are taught. (Most class time seems spent declining Latin verbs, while Tom has such a poor grasp of geography he does not seem to know the location of the United States!) Some critics have claimed that the Harry Potter books borrow a lot from Tom Brown's School Days. Those critics must not have actually read Hughes' book, as it has absolutely nothing to do with magic, orphans, or evil wizards. There is a good deal of cricket though! A wonderful novel in its own, very original way.
A children's classic - but one of those written for all ages, which is how books were written at the time. There was no shame in a child and his/her parent sharing the same favourites. So, a classic, a debut novel (really an only novel) and a singular account of school life in the Victorian era under a very famous headmaster. Not only this but it spawned another classic - or perhaps a modern classic? in Flashman, the character first met here, at Rugby; a bully, a cad, a bounder and general all-round bad seed, he ends by being expelled, to the relief of all the 'fags' (a word which has since had other connotations and did not mean what we would today read it as: here they are junior boys who have to essentially slave for a senior boy and take their luck on whether or not that senior is fair minded or kind.) Flashman became a much greater success, perhaps, than his progenitor was.
As to this novel, it is naturally dated in language and mode of writing - it is also awkwardly written at times and can be quite verbose. It's not, therefore, an especially easy read but I believe it is worth the little extra effort required. It was suggested that the story was autobiographical - Hughes said not but, reading it, I have to suspect he was not entirely adhering to the actualité there. Certainly he was at Rugby under Dr Arnold. Probably what was not true was Flashman himself, who may have been written from an amalgam of less popular senior boys - as far as I am aware no-one has been put forward as a candidate for his character! These are just my own thoughts, however. It remains a favourite for me and I further see it as more of a historical document than I did when I read it around age 9 or 10.
Wonderful old classic … This is the story of a boy, Tom Brown, and his years at Rugby school during the tenure of Thomas Arnold as headmaster, in the early Victorian era.
Unless you're a hopeless anglophile, you might prefer watching one of the dramatisations of this story. (The made-for-television film with Stephen Fry as Doctor Arnold is especially good.) The films tend to have more plot than the book, which is more a series of chronological anecdotes set amidst statements of philosophy than it is a novel. The philosophy in question was that championed by Doctor Arnold, which sought to root education in Christian ethics, to end the culture of bullying that held sway in most schools (as personified by the character Flashman), and to inculcate a sense of respect for all people, regardless of social standing.
If you're an anglophile, you'll probably like the what-ho, jolly good tone of the writing. There's a lot about cricket bats, rugby football, and toasted cheese in here.
If you're a fan of George MacDonald Fraser's Flashman series, this book might be of interest, as this is where Harry Paget Flashman makes his literary debut as a young bully, toady, liar, cheat, and all-round scoundrel.
From a historical standpoint, this book is a good illustration of the philosophy of "muscular Christianity," a brand of Anglo-Saxon Protestantism that combined the virtues of social ethics, clean living, and personal reliability with manliness as expressed in team sport and outdoor pursuits. It was an adaptation of Christianity to Victorian mores.
This book was also an early example of the public school novel, a popular youth genre which has had echoes in later works. As I read about Tom Brown's Rugby, I kept thinking it was a bit like Hogwarts, but without the magic.
Marvellous Reading!
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Because you KNOW what you're getting. My close up photos are of the actual item & form part of my description!!
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