Books with author Thomas (1827-1890) Hughes

How is this book unique?Font adjustments & biography includedUnabridged (100% Original content)IllustratedAbout Tom Brown's School Days by Thomas HughesTom Brown's School Days is an 1857 novel by Thomas Hughes. The story is set in the 1830s at Rugby School, a public school for boys. The novel was originally published as being "by an Old Boy of Rugby", and much of it is based on the author's experiences. Tom Brown is largely based on the author's brother George Hughes. George Arthur, another of the book's main characters, is generally believed to be based on Arthur Penrhyn Stanley. The fictional Tom's life also resembles the author's, in that the culminating event of his school career was a cricket match. Tom Brown's School Days has been the source for several film and television adaptations. It also influenced the genre of British school novels, which began in the 19th century, and led to fictional depictions of schools such as Billy Bunter's Greyfriars School, Mr Chips' Brookfield, St. Trinian's, and Harry Potter's Hogwarts. A sequel, Tom Brown at Oxford, was published in 1861.

First published in 1857, Thomas Hughes' novel Tom Brown's Schooldays has remained popular well into modern times. Hughes was a Rugby alumnus, and dedicated the novel to the widow of his old headmaster, Dr. Thomas Arnold. While the story has entertained generations of mostly young readers, and inspired an entire genre of British boarding school novels, perhaps the character best known to modern readers is the bully Flashman. An important, though ultimately minor character in the first part of Tom Brown's Schooldays, he would later be appropriated as the protagonist of a highly popular series of novels by British author George MacDonald Fraser.Hughes' novel takes Tom Brown from childhood as the son of the local squire, to his early days at a private boarding school (terminated by an epidemic at the school), and then right through his years at Rugby, a real school that is today best known to those outside Britain for the modified form of soccer that originated there and bears the school's name. Rugby (the game) and cricket both figure prominently in the story. The final chapter, which takes place in 1842, is mostly a tribute to Arnold, who had died in that year.Our edition has been carefully edited and formatted for the Kindle reading device, and includes a linked table of contents along with a number of new notes to clarify some references that have become obscure with the passing years.

Tom Brown’s Schooldays, first published in 1857, is perhaps the most celebrated (though not the first) example of the school story. Thomas Hughes wrote it for his eight-year-old son and wanted it to be interesting and ‘written in a right spirit’, in contrast to earlier, more didactic school stories such as Harriet Martineau’s The Crofton Boys (1841). The book is set in the 1830s and Tom, a country squire’s son, is sent to Rugby School. Tom is initially anxious to fit in and good at sport, but also mischievous, and reckless. The book is famous for the accounts of the bully Flashman, who roasts Tom and his friend Harry East in front of a fire, and the pious George Arthur who gradually introduces the civilising influence of religion into Tom’s dormitory. Rugby’s famous headmaster Dr Thomas Arnold appears as ‘the Doctor’.Although Hughes meant his hero to be representative of ‘everyman’ rather than being a self-portrait, there are clear parallels with his life, and his portrayal of the Rugby School, which he attended, is realistic. Hughes, a barrister and later a judge, wrote a sequel, but it did not approach the popularity of Tom Brown’s Schooldays which has never been out of print.