THE OLD LIE The Great War and the Public-School Ethos PETER PARKER CONSTABLE AND CO 1987 1st edition. 24 x 16 cm. 319 pp + b/w photo plates. HB/DJ. This book traces the history of an ideal and examines its workings in the lives of those who were caught up in the First World War. It suggests that a major source of the illusions which drew eager civilians into a New Army was the English public-school system. Rupert Brooke's apparent enthusiasm for the War in 1914 was echoed throughout England, particularly by young men who had been educated in a gentlemanly tradition of chivalry, honour, patriotism and sportsmanship. The Class of 1914 had been prepared both implicitly, by the codes to which the schools subscribed, and explicitly, by the Officers' Training Corps, for the eventuality of war. Furthermore, it was not only public-school boys who had been indoctrinated, for the ethos had been disseminated throughout society by youth movements, boys' clubs, school and university missions, and a deluge of adulatory journalism, memoirs, novels and juvenile fiction. Drawing upon this wealth of material, Peter Parker's fascinating book identifies the public-school ethos and traces its development from the reforms of Thomas Arnold, through late-Victorian expansion and confusion, to its final flowering in the first two decades of this century. It also explores the wide variety of responses to the War — from celebration to denigration, from patriotic acquiescence to bitter rebellion -as they were reflected in the poetry and prose of the period. By investigating what Wilfred Owen dismissed as 'The Old Lie', this book unearths some bizarre notions about education and warfare, and illuminatingly re-examines the literature of the Great War by placing it in its historical and social perspective.

THE OLD LIE
The Great War and the
Public-School Ethos

PETER PARKER

CONSTABLE AND CO
1987

First edition.
This book traces the history of an ideal and examines its workings in the lives of those who were caught up in the First World War. It suggests that a major source of the illusions which drew eager civilians into a New Army was the English public-school system. Rupert Brooke's apparent enthusiasm for the War in 1914 was echoed throughout England, particularly by young men who had been educated in a gentlemanly tradition of chivalry, honour, patriotism and sportsmanship. The Class of 1914 had been prepared both implicitly, by the codes to which the schools subscribed, and explicitly, by the Officers' Training Corps, for the eventuality of war. Furthermore, it was not only public-school boys who had been indoctrinated, for the ethos had been disseminated throughout society by youth movements, boys' clubs, school and university missions, and a deluge of adulatory journalism, memoirs, novels and juvenile fiction.

Drawing upon this wealth of material, Peter Parker's fascinating book identifies the public-school ethos and traces its development from the reforms of Thomas Arnold, through late-Victorian expansion and confusion, to its final flowering in the first two decades of this century. It also explores the wide variety of responses to the War — from celebration to denigration, from patriotic acquiescence to bitter rebellion -as they were reflected in the poetry and prose of the period. By investigating what Wilfred Owen dismissed as 'The Old Lie', this book unearths some bizarre notions about education and warfare, and illuminatingly re-examines the literature of the Great War by placing it in its historical and social perspective.

24 x 16 cm. 319 pp + b/w photo plates.

Good condition, ex-college library with the usual stamps and marks to the preliminary pages but otherwise clean and tidy. Dust jacket faded on the spine.





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