''Goodbye, Mr. Chips'' is a
novella
A novella is a narrative prose fiction whose length is shorter than most novels, but longer than most short stories. The English word ''novella'' derives from the Italian ''novella'' meaning a short story related to true (or apparently so) fact ...
about the life of a school teacher, Mr. Chipping, written by English writer
James Hilton and first published by
Hodder & Stoughton
Hodder & Stoughton is a British publishing house, now an imprint of Hachette.
History
Early history
The firm has its origins in the 1840s, with Matthew Hodder's employment, aged 14, with Messrs Jackson and Walford, the official publishe ...
in October 1934. It has been adapted into two feature films and two television presentations.
History
The story was originally issued in 1933, as a supplement to the ''British Weekly'', an
evangelical
Evangelicalism (), also called evangelical Christianity or evangelical Protestantism, is a worldwide interdenominational movement within Protestant Christianity that affirms the centrality of being " born again", in which an individual expe ...
newspaper. It came to prominence when it was reprinted as the lead piece of the April 1934 issue of ''
The Atlantic Monthly
''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher. It features articles in the fields of politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science.
It was founded in 1857 in Boston, ...
''. The success of the ''Atlantic Monthly'' publication prompted a book deal between the author and the US publisher
Little, Brown and Company
Little, Brown and Company is an American publishing company founded in 1837 by Charles Coffin Little and James Brown in Boston. For close to two centuries it has published fiction and nonfiction by American authors. Early lists featured Emily ...
, who published the story in book form for the first time in June 1934. Published during the
Great Depression
The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...
, Little, Brown cautiously released a small first print run. Public demand for more was immediate and Little, Brown went into an almost immediate reprinting the same month. Public demand remained strong, and Little, Brown continued to reprint the book in cautious lots for many months, with at least two reprintings per month.
The first British edition went to press in October 1934. The publishers were
Hodder & Stoughton
Hodder & Stoughton is a British publishing house, now an imprint of Hachette.
History
Early history
The firm has its origins in the 1840s, with Matthew Hodder's employment, aged 14, with Messrs Jackson and Walford, the official publishe ...
, who had observed the success of the book in the United States, and they released a much larger first print run. It sold 15,000 copies on the day of publication,
and they quickly found themselves going into reprints as the reading public's demand for the book proved insatiable. With the huge success of this book, James Hilton became a best-selling author. In 1938, he published a sequel, ''To You, Mr Chips''.
Plot summary
The novella tells the story of a beloved school teacher, Mr Chipping, and his long tenure at Brookfield School, a fictional minor British boys'
public boarding school located in the fictional village of Brookfield in
the Fenlands
The Fens, also known as the , in eastern England are a naturally marshy region supporting a rich ecology and numerous species. Most of the fens were drained centuries ago, resulting in a flat, dry, low-lying agricultural region supported by a ...
. Mr Chips, as the boys call him, is conventional in his beliefs and exercises firm discipline in the classroom. His views broaden, and his pedagogical manner loosens after he marries Katherine, a young woman whom he meets on holiday in the
Lake District
The Lake District, also known as the Lakes or Lakeland, is a mountainous region in North West England. A popular holiday destination, it is famous for its lakes, forests, and mountains (or '' fells''), and its associations with William Wordswor ...
. Katherine charms the Brookfield teachers and headmaster and quickly wins the favour of Brookfield's pupils. Their marriage is brief. She dies in childbirth and he never remarries or has another romantic interest.
One of the themes of the book is that Chipping so outlasts all of his peers that his brief marriage fades into myth and few people know him as anything other than a confirmed and lonely bachelor. Despite Chipping's mediocre credentials and his view that
classic Greek and Latin (his academic subjects) are dead languages, he is an effective teacher who becomes highly regarded by pupils and the school's governors—he has become a well-worn institution. In his later years, he develops an arch sense of humour that pleases everyone. However, he also becomes somewhat of an anachronism, with an antiquated pronunciation and is pitied for his isolation. On his deathbed, he talks of the fulfilment he felt as a teacher of boys.
Inspiration
The setting for ''Goodbye, Mr. Chips'' is probably based on
The Leys School
The Leys School is a co-educational independent school in Cambridge, England. It is a day and boarding school for about 574 pupils between the ages of eleven and eighteen, and a member of the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference.
Histo ...
, Cambridge, where James Hilton was a pupil (1915–18). Hilton is reported to have said that the inspiration for the protagonist, Mr. Chips, came from many sources, including his father, who was the headmaster of Chapel End School. Mr. Chips is also likely to have been based on
W. H. Balgarnie, a master at The Leys (1900–30), who was in charge of the ''Leys Fortnightly'' (in which Hilton's first short stories and essays were published). Over the years, old boys wrote to Geoffery Houghton, a master at The Leys and a historian of the school, confirming the links between Chipping and Balgarnie, who eventually died at
Porthmadog
Porthmadog (; ), originally Portmadoc until 1974 and locally as "Port", is a Welsh coastal town and community in the Eifionydd area of Gwynedd and the historic county of Caernarfonshire. It lies east of Criccieth, south-west of Blaenau F ...
at the age of 82. Balgarnie had been linked with the school for 51 years and spent his last years in modest lodgings nearby. Like Mr. Chips, Balgarnie was a strict disciplinarian, but would also invite boys to visit him for tea and biscuits.
Hilton wrote upon Balgarnie's death that "Balgarnie was, I suppose, the chief model for my story. When I read so many other stories about
public school life, I am struck by the fact that I suffered no such purgatory as their authors apparently did, and much of this miracle was due to Balgarnie."
The
mutton chop side whiskers of one of the masters at The Leys earned him the nickname "Chops", a likely inspiration for Mr Chips' name.
In Hilton's final novel, ''Time and Time Again'' (1953), protagonist Charles Anderson bears clear biographical similarities to Hilton himself. Early in the novel, Anderson briefly reminisces about attending Brookfield and knowing "Chips".
Adaptations
Radio
A 50-minute adaptation by James Hilton and Barbara Burnham was broadcast on the
BBC National Programme at 20:00 on 23 July 1936, with
Richard Goolden in the title part and a cast that included
Norman Shelley
Norman Shelley (16 February 1903 – 21 August 1980) was a British actor, best known for his work in radio, in particular for the BBC's ''Children's Hour''. He also had a recurring role as Colonel Danby in the long-running radio soap opera ''T ...
,
Ronald Simpson,
Lewis Shaw and
Hermione Hannen.
There was a repeat broadcast the following evening.
A radio adaptation by the ''
Lux Radio Theatre
''Lux Radio Theatre'', sometimes spelled ''Lux Radio Theater'', a classic radio anthology series, was broadcast on the NBC Blue Network (1934–35) (owned by the National Broadcasting Company, later predecessor of American Broadcasting Company ...
'' starring
Laurence Olivier
Laurence Kerr Olivier, Baron Olivier (; 22 May 1907 – 11 July 1989) was an English actor and director who, along with his contemporaries Ralph Richardson and John Gielgud, was one of a trio of male actors who dominated the British stage ...
and
Edna Best
Edna Clara Best (3 March 1900 – 18 September 1974) was a British actress.
Early life
Born in Hove, Sussex, England, she was educated in Brighton and later studied dramatic acting under Miss Kate Rorke who was the first professor of Drama a ...
and presented by
Cecil B. DeMille was first broadcast on 20 November 1939.
A radio adaptation by The NBC University Theatre was broadcast on 9 July 1949. Agnes Eckhardt wrote the adaptation, and Andrew C. Love was the director.
Theatre
Barbara Burnham adapted the book for a stage production in three acts, which was first performed at the
Shaftesbury Theatre
The Shaftesbury Theatre is a West End theatre, located on Shaftesbury Avenue, in the London Borough of Camden. Opened in 1911 as the New Prince's Theatre, it was the last theatre to be built in Shaftesbury Avenue.
History
The theatre was ...
on 23 September 1938, with
Leslie Banks as Mr. Chips and
Constance Cummings as his wife Katherine.
It ran for over 100 performances
until 14 January 1939.
A stage musical based on the original novel, but using most of the
Leslie Bricusse
Leslie Bricusse OBE (; 29 January 1931 – 19 October 2021) was a British composer, lyricist, and playwright who worked on theatre musicals and wrote theme music for films. He was best known for writing the music and lyrics for the films '' Do ...
vocal score of the 1969 film, was mounted at the Chichester Festival and opened on 11 August 1982. The book was by Roland Starke and the production was directed by Patrick Garland and Christopher Selbie. Among the
Chichester Festival cast were
John Mills
Sir John Mills (born Lewis Ernest Watts Mills; 22 February 190823 April 2005) was an English actor who appeared in more than 120 films in a career spanning seven decades. He excelled on camera as an appealing British everyman who often portray ...
as Mr. Chips,
Colette Gleeson
Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette (; 28 January 1873 – 3 August 1954), known mononymously as Colette, was a French author and woman of letters. She was also a mime, actress, and journalist. Colette is best known in the English-speaking world for her ...
as Kathie,
Nigel Stock as Max,
Michael Sadler and
Robert Meadmore in supporting roles, and 20 local school boys, including Kevin Farrar who was selected by Bricusse to sing the final verse of the iconic "School Song", which features on the original cast album which was recorded on the That's Entertainment Records label TER 1025 at
Abbey Roads Studios in London on 17/18 August 1982. JAY-jay Records also have a release of it.
Film
1939 film
This version stars
Robert Donat
Friedrich Robert Donat (18 March 1905 – 9 June 1958) was an English actor. He is best remembered for his roles in Alfred Hitchcock's '' The 39 Steps'' (1935) and ''Goodbye, Mr. Chips'' (1939), winning for the latter the Academy Award for ...
,
Greer Garson
Eileen Evelyn Greer Garson (29 September 1904 – 6 April 1996) was an English-American actress and singer. She was a major star at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer who became popular during the Second World War for her portrayal of strong women on the hom ...
,
Terry Kilburn
Terence E. Kilburn (born 25 November 1926), known for his acting work prior to 1953 as Terry Kilburn, is an English-American actor. Born in London, he moved to Hollywood in the U.S. at the age of 10, and is best known for his roles as a child ac ...
,
John Mills
Sir John Mills (born Lewis Ernest Watts Mills; 22 February 190823 April 2005) was an English actor who appeared in more than 120 films in a career spanning seven decades. He excelled on camera as an appealing British everyman who often portray ...
, and
Paul Henreid. Donat won an
Academy Award for Best Actor
The Academy Award for Best Actor is an award presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). It is given to an actor who has delivered an outstanding performance in a leading role in a film released that year. The ...
for his performance in the lead role, beating
Clark Gable
William Clark Gable (February 1, 1901November 16, 1960) was an American film actor, often referred to as "The King of Hollywood". He had roles in more than 60 motion pictures in multiple genres during a career that lasted 37 years, three decades ...
,
James Stewart
James Maitland Stewart (May 20, 1908 – July 2, 1997) was an American actor and military pilot. Known for his distinctive drawl and everyman screen persona, Stewart's film career spanned 80 films from 1935 to 1991. With the strong morality ...
,
Laurence Olivier
Laurence Kerr Olivier, Baron Olivier (; 22 May 1907 – 11 July 1989) was an English actor and director who, along with his contemporaries Ralph Richardson and John Gielgud, was one of a trio of male actors who dominated the British stage ...
, and
Mickey Rooney
Mickey Rooney (born Joseph Yule Jr.; other pseudonym Mickey Maguire; September 23, 1920 – April 6, 2014) was an American actor. In a career spanning nine decades, he appeared in more than 300 films and was among the last surviving stars of the ...
. While some of the incidents depicted in the various screen adaptations do not appear in the book, this film is generally faithful to the original story. The exteriors of the buildings of the fictional Brookfield School were filmed at
Repton School
Repton School is a 13–18 co-educational, independent, day and boarding school in the English public school tradition, in Repton, Derbyshire, England.
Sir John Port of Etwall, on his death in 1557, left funds to create a grammar school whi ...
, an independent school (at the time of filming, for boys only), located in the village of
Repton
Repton is a village and civil parish in the South Derbyshire district of Derbyshire, England, located on the edge of the River Trent floodplain, about north of Swadlincote. The population taken at the 2001 Census was 2,707, increasing to 2,8 ...
, in
Derbyshire
Derbyshire ( ) is a ceremonial county in the East Midlands, England. It includes much of the Peak District National Park, the southern end of the Pennine range of hills and part of the National Forest. It borders Greater Manchester to the nor ...
, in the Midlands area of England, whilst the interiors, school courtyards and annexes, including the supposedly exterior shots of the Austrian Tyrol Mountains, were filmed at
Denham Film Studios
Denham Film Studios was a British film production studio operating from 1936 to 1952, founded by Alexander Korda.
Notable films made at Denham include ''Brief Encounter'' and David Lean's ''Great Expectations''. From the 1950s to the 1970s th ...
, near the village of
Denham in
Buckinghamshire
Buckinghamshire (), abbreviated Bucks, is a ceremonial county in South East England that borders Greater London to the south-east, Berkshire to the south, Oxfordshire to the west, Northamptonshire to the north, Bedfordshire to the north-e ...
. Around 200 boys from Repton School stayed on during the school holidays so that they could appear in the film.
1969 film
In 1969 a musical film version appeared, starring
Peter O'Toole
Peter Seamus O'Toole (; 2 August 1932 – 14 December 2013) was a British stage and film actor. He attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and began working in the theatre, gaining recognition as a Shakespearean actor at the Bristol Old V ...
and
Petula Clark
Petula Sally Olwen Clark, CBE (born 15 November 1932) is an English singer, actress, and composer. She has one of the longest serving careers of a British singer, spanning more than seven decades.
Clark's professional career began during the ...
, with songs by
Leslie Bricusse
Leslie Bricusse OBE (; 29 January 1931 – 19 October 2021) was a British composer, lyricist, and playwright who worked on theatre musicals and wrote theme music for films. He was best known for writing the music and lyrics for the films '' Do ...
and an
underscore
An underscore, ; also called an underline, low line, or low dash; is a line drawn under a segment of text. In proofreading, underscoring is a convention that says "set this text in italic type", traditionally used on manuscript or typescript ...
by
John Williams
John Towner Williams (born February 8, 1932)Nylund, Rob (15 November 2022)Classic Connection review '' WBOI'' ("For the second time this year, the Fort Wayne Philharmonic honored American composer, conductor, and arranger John Williams, who w ...
. In this version the character of Katherine is greatly expanded, and the time setting of the story is moved forward several decades, with Chips' career beginning in the early 20th century and his later career covering
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
, rather than
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...
. O'Toole and Clark's performances were widely praised. At the
42nd Academy Awards
The 42nd Academy Awards were presented April 7, 1970, at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles, California. For the second year in a row, there was no official host. Awards were presented by seventeen "Friends of Oscar": Bob Hope, Joh ...
, O'Toole was nominated for the
Academy Award for Best Actor
The Academy Award for Best Actor is an award presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). It is given to an actor who has delivered an outstanding performance in a leading role in a film released that year. The ...
, and he won the
Golden Globe Award
The Golden Globe Awards are accolades bestowed by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association beginning in January 1944, recognizing excellence in both American and international film and television. Beginning in 2022, there are 105 members of ...
for
Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy.
Television
1984 serial
In 1984 it was adapted as a television serial by the
BBC. It starred
Roy Marsden
Roy Marsden (born Roy Anthony Mould; 25 June 1941) is an English actor who portrayed Adam Dalgliesh in the Anglia Television dramatisations (1983–1998) of P. D. James's detective novels, and Neil Burnside in the spy drama ''The Sandbagg ...
and
Jill Meager
Jill Meager is an English actor, artist and painter.
Career
Meager studied modern languages at Trinity Hall, Cambridge. She worked for several years as an actor before training as a psychodynamic counsellor. She also worked as a stand-up comed ...
and ran for six half-hour episodes. Many scenes were filmed at
Repton School
Repton School is a 13–18 co-educational, independent, day and boarding school in the English public school tradition, in Repton, Derbyshire, England.
Sir John Port of Etwall, on his death in 1557, left funds to create a grammar school whi ...
, Derbyshire, in an effort to remain faithful to the original film.
2002 serial
A television film adaptation was produced by
STV Studios
STV Studios (previously STV Productions, SMG Productions, and originally known as Scottish Television Enterprises) is the television production arm of the STV Group plc. Headquartered in Glasgow, Scotland, and with an office in London, England ...
(then known as "SMG TV Productions") in 2002. It aired on the
ITV Network in Britain and on
PBS's ''
Masterpiece Theatre'' in the United States. It starred
Martin Clunes
Alexander Martin Clunes Order of the British Empire, OBE Deputy Lieutenant, DL (born 28 November 1961) is an English actor, comedian, director and television presenter. He is best known for portraying Martin Ellingham in the ITV (TV network), IT ...
and
Victoria Hamilton with
Henry Cavill
Henry William Dalgliesh Cavill ( ; born 5 May 1983) is a British actor. He is known for his portrayal of Charles Brandon in Showtime's ''The Tudors'' (2007–2010), DC Comics character Superman in the DC Extended Universe (2013–2022), Gera ...
,
William Moseley, Oliver Rokison and
Harry Lloyd.
Parodies
''Goodbye, Mr. Chips'' was parodied in the British sketch comedy programmes ''
Hale and Pace'' (as ''Piss Off, Mr. Chips'') and ''
Big Train''.
Vince Gilligan created the television show ''
Breaking Bad
''Breaking Bad'' is an American crime drama television series created and produced by Vince Gilligan. Set and filmed in Albuquerque, New Mexico, the series follows Walter White (Bryan Cranston), an underpaid, overqualified, and dispirited h ...
'' with the premise that the show's protagonist
Walter White Walter White most often refers to:
* Walter White (''Breaking Bad''), character in the television series ''Breaking Bad''
* Walter Francis White (1893–1955), American leader of the NAACP
Walter White may also refer to:
Fictional characters ...
would turn "From Mr. Chips to ''
Scarface''" through the series' course.
See also
*
1934 in literature
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1934.
Events
*January 7 – The first ''Flash Gordon'' comic strip is created and illustrated by Alex Raymond and published in the United States.
*January 25 – Ja ...
* ''
To Serve Them All My Days''
References
External links
*
{{Authority control
1934 British novels
British novels adapted into films
English novels
Little, Brown and Company books
British novels adapted into television shows
Novels by James Hilton
Novels set in boarding schools
Television series by STV Studios
Works originally published in British newspapers