''The Fifth Form at St. Dominic's'' (published 1881) is the best known of the

school stories The school story is a fiction genre centring on older pre-adolescent and adolescent school life, at its most popular in the first half of the twentieth century. While examples do exist in other countries, it is most commonly set in English board ...

by the late nineteenth century author

Talbot Baines Reed Talbot Baines Reed (3 April 1852 – 28 November 1893) was an English writer of young adult fiction, boys' fiction who established a genre of school story, school stories that endured into the mid-20th century. Among his best-known work is ' ...

. The stories as well as the book were written for the ''

Boy's Own Paper ''The Boy's Own Paper'' was a British story paper aimed at young and teenage boys, published from 1879 to 1967. Publishing history The idea for the publication was first raised in 1878 by the Religious Tract Society, as a means to encourage you ...

'' and published by the

Religious Tract Society The Religious Tract Society was a British evangelical Christian organization founded in 1799 and known for publishing a variety of popular religious and quasi-religious texts in the 19th century. The society engaged in charity as well as commerci ...

, with illustrations by

Gordon Browne Gordon Frederick Browne (15 April 1858 – 27 May 1932) was an English artist and a prolific illustrator of children's books in the late 19th century and early 20th century. He was a meticulous craftsman and went to a great deal of effort to e ...

. It was adapted into the 1921 film of the same name. Reed had no personal experience of a

public school Public school may refer to: * State school (known as a public school in many countries), a no-fee school, publicly funded and operated by the government * Public school (United Kingdom), certain elite fee-charging independent schools in England an ...

education himself; consequently, the book lacked some of the realism of other comparable books like ''

Tom Brown's Schooldays ''Tom Brown's School Days'' (sometimes written ''Tom Brown's Schooldays'', also published under the titles ''Tom Brown at Rugby'', ''School Days at Rugby'', and ''Tom Brown's School Days at Rugby'') is an 1857 novel by Thomas Hughes. The stor ...

'' and ''

Eric, or, Little by Little ''Eric, or, Little by Little'' is a book by Frederic W. Farrar, first edition 1858. It was published by Adam & Charles Black, Edinburgh and London. The book deals with the descent into moral turpitude of a boy at a boarding school or English pub ...

''. It also avoids much of the overt moralising and sentimentality found in these books, though a muscular type of Christianity makes occasional appearances. However, the book was written with great enthusiasm and it started a tradition of boarding school stories in British juvenile fiction that lasted until the end of World War II. The novel was serialized as a 14-part 2-page comic in

Look and Learn ''Look and Learn'' was a British weekly educational magazine for children published by Fleetway Publications Ltd from 1962 until 1982. It contained educational text articles that covered a wide variety of topics from volcanoes to the Loch Ness ...

magazine between December 1979 and March 1980. The plot revolves around the fall into turpitude of a senior schoolboy named Loman, under the influence of a manipulative and dissolute innkeeper. Loman's young protégé (his fag - a junior boy who acts as the unpaid servant of a senior) is also endangered by association with the innkeeper, but is eventually rescued by his older brother. This brother is falsely suspected of having cheated in a major examination and is ostracised by his fellow schoolmates. The plot is resolved by the vindication of the right-thinking and the forgiveness of those who have fallen into error. There is much coverage of schoolboy societies and the forms of self-governance that the scholars have established within their traditions, and of descriptions of various forms of sport.

References

* Carpenter, Humphrey and Mari Prichard. ''Oxford Companion to Children's Literature''. Oxford University Press, 1997. * Zipes, Jack (ed) et al. ''The Norton Anthology of Children's Literature: The Traditions in English.'' W. W. Norton, 2005. * Zipes, Jack (ed.). ''The Oxford Encyclopedia of Children's Literature. Volumes 1-4''. Oxford University Press, 2006. * Watson, Victor, ''The Cambridge Guide to Children's Books in English''. Cambridge University Press, 2001.

External links

E-text of ''The Fifth Form at St. Dominic's''

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1887 British novels British children's novels 19th-century British children's literature Works originally published in children's magazines Novels set in schools British novels adapted into films 1880s children's books {{1880s-novel-stub