Tom Brown's School Days (Barnes & Noble Digital Library)
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One of the earliest books written specifically for boys, and now considered a classic; this is the tale of young Tom Brown, who attends the influential Rugby School. He is repeatedly bullied by Flashman, a fellow student, but manages to overcome his harassment and mature under the mentoring of the headmaster, Thomas Arnold.
Thomas Hughes
Thomas Hughes was an English lawyer, politician, and author best known for his semi-autobiographical classic Tom Brown’s School Days. Trained as a lawyer, Hughes was appointed a county-court judge before being elected to the British Parliament. Hughes was also a committed social reformer, and was one of the founders and later principal of Working Men’s College. His interest in social structures led him to become involved with the model village, and he later founded a settlement that experimented with utopian life in Tennessee. In addition to Tom Brown, Hughes penned The Scouring of the White Horse, Tom Brown at Oxford, Life of Alfred the Great, and Memoir of a Brother. He died in 1896.
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Reviews for Tom Brown's School Days (Barnes & Noble Digital Library)
166 ratings13 reviews
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Tom Brown's Schooldays offers the reader insight into childhood in the early nineteenth century and the public school system in England. It may very well be the first novel written specifically for a young, male audience, which might explain why I was unable to enjoy it. Nonetheless, it was interesting to find out from a contemporary about Matthew Arnold's father (headmaster at Rugby).
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Victorian-era literature always gets to me. I know that Tom Brown's School Days centers on the manner and customs of the mid 1850s and is the basis for the Flashman series by George MacDonald Fraser, but I found myself completely bored. Aside from the great illustrations this wasn't the most entertaining of reads.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5(Original Review, 1981-01-22)The issue of class and elitism (subjects dear to my heart) are, paradoxically, less important in these boarding school books than the fact that the children/teenagers are on a metaphorical island. They are without what in fictional terms is either the safety belt of having parents to look after them if they get into scrapes or of the social realism of having to deal with boring, dull, irritating parents in the form and shape the reader is likely to meet.So the characters can be vulnerable, brave, cheeky etc but they have to do it with these surrogate parents, (teachers etc) who don't have the same sanctions and same psychological links and hooks that parents have. The school format also gives the writer the possibility of writing about a range of surrogate parent types and so can deal with children's 'split' view of their parents (love'em/hate'em etc).In a way, a lot of the books, then, aren't really psychologically about private boarding schools about the reader's anxieties about how to make out in a world without your parents.I'm not sure Harry Potter books are any more elitist than the myths of Moses or Jesus. They are messiah myths which means you can focus on the idea that the messiah will save us all or - flip it - and it's about the kinds of trials and quests that the messiah figure will need to do in order to win his crown...even though it's pre-ordained that he will. Ultimately, yes, this is elitist, but not in a social realist sense. More, in a mythic sense that socially we 'need' some kind of prince to 'save' us from an imperfect world. (As an ideology, I think that's crap. As a storytelling device, it's compelling because it induces us to care about someone who the world doesn't yet know or appreciate is 'the special one'. Doesn't that appeal to the part of us that thinks that about ourselves...'I'm special, but the world doesn't know that yet...' Whilst giving us hope that the world could be improved if only it woke up to the fact that it has a messiah in its midst.The point about boarding school stories, at least for the purposes of the author, is that they give your protagonists an environment where authority and pastoral care are thinly spread, maybe intermittent, but extant, thus falling between the extremes of a closely observed and nurturing family life, where you'll get caught pretty smartly if you try anything wild (note that Will Stanton in the much-praised 'The Dark is Rising' is the youngest of a family of nine, and so over-anxious care is pretty thin on the ground for him too), and the full-on anarchy of 'Lord of the Flies'.I understood the worlds of Bunter and Jennings very well, and have never derived anything much from their stories other than mild amusement and the occasional conspiratorial smile because their world was real to me and therefore not very interesting. I've always revered Kipling, but detested Chalky. What a smart-arse. He wouldn't have lasted long at my school before experiencing the dark, lonely horrors of being sent to Coventry, I can tell you. Hogwarts? There's fantasy for you. Great stories, crappy literature! But Molesworth is best as any fule no.I recently read, and loved, a modern story (probably written for older kids), not about a boarding school but about a school trip which takes place in a closed environment. It was “Pandemonium” by Christopher Brookmyre. Great fun.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5One of the few thorns in my college literature classes! Tom Brown was part of the syllabus of our Victorian literature class not because of its literary value but as a portrait of the Victorian psychology. After all, it was schools like Rugby which shaped the great writers, thinkers, empire builders and political figures
of 19th century England, not the least among the literary figures being Matthew Arnold, the son of Rugby's headmaster Thomas Arnold. Thomas Arnold in Tom Brown figures as a guiding, benevolent godhead of the school.
As the granddaddy of the school boy novel genre which has ranged from the various works of Delderfield to Hilton's Goodbye, Mr. Chips to Knowles's A Separate Peace, it must be given its due. One can also note to its credit that it is the source of Fraser's character Flashman who was a bully and Tom's nemesis in Hughes's novel. As a mirror of the educated upper middle class Victorian mindset it is quite effective. Which is to say it isn't much fun.1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This classic portrayal of life at Victorian public school was immensely entertaining. True, at times it occasionally veered towards the sanctimonious, and the depth of Tom's sorrow upon hearing of the death of his former headmaster seems highly exaggerated to the modern reader.The odious Flashman, the rather too pious Arthur and the rumbustious East are all marvellously drawn, and the eponymous hero bestrides them all as he passes from nervous, innocent new boy to captain of the cricket eleven, taking everything that Flashman, the local gamekeepers and the watchful teachers can throw at him.
1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5There is a charm to this book and a gentility that makes other school books pale in comparison.It's a bit pious for modern day readers but it tells the tale of how Tom Brown arrived at Rugby a bit rough and ready and left it a relatively civilised young man, having had some splendid adventures along the way, but also several soul-searching discussions.I would add, that in this day and age when education is being pulled this way and that, that it emphasises that the quality of a school depends on the quality of the headteacher and staff, not on the institution and the form that it takes.
1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Still readable; excellent as an example of Victorian idealization. Plus the first appearance in print of Flashman - so a must for George MacDonald Fraser fans.
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- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I've always been fascinated by books set in boarding schools, since I never went to one. This book is based on the educational theories of Arnold of Rugby (still an important British public school, I believe) and is a ripping yarn to boot.
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- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Raised near a rural village in Berkshire, in the Vale of White Horse (presently part of Oxfordshire), Tom Brown was a healthy, hearty young English boy, full of fun and plenty of mischief. His parents, convinced that the female authority of his nurse was not enough to keep him in line, sent him to private school at the age of nine. When this school unexpectedly closed due to illness, he was sent early to Rugby, one of England's great public schools.** His father advised him that he would see a great many cruel deeds at school, but that he should always "tell the truth, keep a brave and kind heart, and never listen to or say anything you wouldn't have your mother and sister hear." Arriving at school, Tom initially found it rather difficult to adhere to this good advice, discovering that he and his new schoolfriend, Harry East, had made an enemy in the form of the upperclassman and bully, Flashman. The battle with this adversary takes up the rest of the first part of the book, while the second is devoted to Tom's growing friendship with the frail and saintly George Arthur, a pious and brilliant young new boy, who has a reciprocal good influence on our eponymous hero... First published in 1857, and set during the 1830s, Tom Brown's Schooldays - alternately knowns as Tom Brown at Rugby, School Days at Rugby, and Tom Brown's School Days at Rugby - was an immensely influential work of children's fiction, both in the genre of the school story, but also in the field of schooling itself. It is apparently based upon the experiences of author Thomas Hughes' brother, George Hughes, while he was a student at Rugby, while the sequel, Tom Brown at Oxford (1861) was based upon George Hughes' time at that university. The character of George Arthur is thought to be based upon the figure of Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, a churchman and academic also educated at Rugby in the 1830s. Needless to say, the beloved 'master' in this story, frequently referred to simply as 'the Doctor,' and named only in the final chapter, is educational reformer Dr. Thomas Arnold, Rugby headmaster from 1828-1841. In an interesting twist, the character of Flashman, although not believed to be based upon one specific real-life person, did go on to become the anti-hero of a series of immensely popular novels written by Scottish author George MacDonald Fraser, from 1969 to 2005.In addition to exploring the institutions and customs of Rugby - birthplace of rugby football, which features prominently in the story - Tom Brown's Schooldays is often considered the first and best argument in favor of what would come to be called "Muscular Christianity." This was a mid-19th-century English philosophy that tied moral and physical education to one another, emphasizing the masculine experiences of religion and sport, and tying them to national duty and political citizenship. In the context of Britain, this meant participation in the British Empire, but in the United States, where it spread in the later part of the 19th century, its was tied to patriotism more generally. Many of the authors of boys' sports fiction of the late 19th and early 20th centuries might be said to exhibit a kind of Muscular Christianity, or, in the case of authors like Earl Reed Silvers, whose work was secular, a kind of Muscular Good Citizenship.Tom Brown's Schooldays is a book that I had long been aware of. It has often been incorrectly cited as the first British school story, an honor that actually belongs to Sarah Fielding's 1749 The Governess; or, The Little Female Academy. Although not the first, it was certainly influential in the development of the genre into the later Victorian and post-Victorian periods. It was an assigned text in the history of children's literature I took while getting my masters, and I am glad to have read it. I found the story engaging, and became quite fond of Tom's forthright, goodhearted, and non-intellectual character. I can understand why some today might find the story preachy, but I actually thought it quite entertaining, and I found the discussion of prayer quite moving. There are many different kinds of cowardice, and many different kinds of bravery, something Tom discovers when he witnesses the frail George Arthur kneel down to say his evening prayers, surrounded by a group of boys who are likely to mock and bully him for it. Tom's epiphany that night - his realization that in this sense, he himself has been a coward, while the frail boy he pitied has been strong and brave - is a valuable one, and the perspective shift perceptively captured. The peace that he feels, once he has decided how to respond to this revelation - "he who has conquered his own coward spirit has conquered the whole outward world" - was very moving to me. Surely, whether one is religious or not, the conduct of those who stick to their beliefs, in the face of possible persecution, can be admired and respected.In sum: this is well worth the time of any reader interested in Victorian children's literature, the school story genre, sports fiction for boys, or the development of the idea of Muscular Christianity.**American readers should note that in the British context, 'public school' does not refer to a state-funded school, but to a certain kind of prestigious private school, open to "the public" of the nation.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I have seen this book on countless used bookstore shelves but always thought, errr, I'd probably hate it. Finally found it in a Free Library, full of ghastly inked in commentary by some student I suppose. Thought, "Wot the hell," and read.What a wonderful, wonderful book. Mr. Hughes's efforts to make a book appealing to boys (not to mention girls, Mr. Hughes), one with moral clarity and compassion, adventure and evocation, real characters whose errors and aspirations, whose very lives matter to the reader, all succeed, brilliantly.I am so happy I have stopped reading the books Everyone Loves and given myself over entirely to the ones that tug at my attention, say, "Pssst, read me. I may be not the thing at all, or I may be an old star in forgotten skies, but I think if you take the time, you will be pleased." (Of course, Tom Brown is not forgotten. Just by my friends and me.)
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I loved this book as a girl and I think it in a way led me to going to a boarding school for high school. A wonderful story of boys and especially friendship
- Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5I had to read this for school. Loathed it. I had to compare it to Harry Potter, of all things. That was not a happy module for me. It's just... stodgy. Unexciting. Full of Good Sound Education about Empire and Leading The World.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Read this because of the Flashman connection. Enjoyed reading about the boys until they began to kneel beside their beds to say prayers - - - - - that is when I realised they were public school twats, groomed by their rich parents to become useless residents of The House of Commons or top lawyers with no experience of real life whatsoever. We all know they exist but we don’t need to read about them and their pampered lives.