The Harrovians: A Tale of Public School Life

First published as a novel in 1914, The Harrovians was based on Arnold Lunn's diary which he kept while he was a boy at Harrow School from 1902 to 1906. The novel was the first critical account of public school life to be published in Britain. The release of the novel had a considerable impact on readers because it provided a realistic and unsettling view of public school life. The novel stood in marked contrast to the rosy corpus of public school fiction and memoirs that had gone before. The Victorian and Edwardian public school system that existed was hitherto generally accepted as an indelible part of the education of an English gentleman. Until the publication of Lunn's novel, there had been no effective criticism of the reasons behind many of its rules and rituals. Lunn's novel broke new ground and helped unleash a wave of criticism aimed at reforming the public school system. The Harrovians--a controversial best-seller when it was first released--is a very engaging and well written story--one that richly deserves to be picked up and enjoyed by a new generation of readers.