Author:
Title: Recollections of Eton. By an Etonian. With Illustrations by Sydney P. Hall
Description: New York City, Harper & Brothers, 1870. Wraps. pp. 126, ads.8vo, A scarce and unusual item, written as a novella in a style which precedes, but is similar to, 'Tom Brown's Schooldays' (first published in 1858 and again in an 1885 edition also illustrated by Sydney Hall). It must have been fairly popular with American readers as Harper's 1880 annual catalog still lists it for sale, and still in paper wraps (as is our copy). Harcourt's ''Eton Bibliography' notes that this title was first published in 1825 as one of a collection of Eton-related novellas; and then again in 1842 as an edited version of only 45 pages in Hood's 'New Monthly Magazine and Humorist', and again in 1864 by Bracebridge, and finally in 1870 by Chapman and Hall (presumably with somewhat larger type as the entry indicates 362 pages. Our offering, and the 1870 London edition, would appear to be the only ones with the delightful Sydney Hall illustrations. It is curious that Harcourt does not record the Harper edition. Our copy is in the original printed paper wraps, with a full-page advertisement for three of Harper's magazines on the back cover and a two-page detailed list of 'Harper's Library of Select Novels' preceding the title page. The novella is divided into two parts: 'The Lower Boy' and 'The Upper Boy', both of 14 chapters. The covers are soiled, the spine heavily chipped, and the page edges ragged. There are spots of foxing and soiling in the text which remains, however, perfectly readable. Still a good copy. The author is not identified by there are suggestions that it was Charles Frederick Johnstone, about whom very little, if anything, is known. Ill.: black-&-white illustrations. The rather small type is set in double columns.

Keywords: Private school;Eton;;;;;;; black-&-white illustrations


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