Readnara
Tom Brown's School Days — Thomas Hughes

Tom Brown's School Days

Thomas Hughes

  • Children
  • Book language: English
  • 256 pages

Tom Brown's School Days is a semi-autobiographical novel about a boy's life at Rugby School in the 1830s. It follows his friendships, pranks, and moral growth under the famous headmaster Dr. Arnold. It is a warm portrait of boyhood and English public school life, valued for its honesty and humour.

Listen to the opening

Listen to the first 5 pages without signing up Listen to the whole book free

Already have an account? Sign in and listen

Free with a free account. The book is read by an AI-generated voice; the text follows along.

Embed on your site

For teachers and schools: paste the code into your site or blog.

Cover of the original edition (Project Gutenberg, public domain).

Text source: gutenberg.org · The work is in the public domain.

Opening of the book

TOM BROWN'S SCHOOLDAYS
By Thomas Hughes
Illustrated by Louis Rhead
0001m
Original
0008m
Original
0009m
Original
0011m
Original
0013m

Original

0014m

Original

0023m

Original

9023m

Original

T is not often that in later years one finds any book as good as one remembers it from one's youth; but it has been my interesting experience to find the story of Tom Brown's School Days even better than I once thought it, say, fifty years ago; not only better, but more charming, more kindly, manlier, truer, realler. So far as I have been able to note there is not a moment of snobbishness in it, or meanness of whatever sort. Of course it is of its period, the period which people call Middle Victorian because the great Queen was then nearly at the end of the first half of her long reign, and not because she personally characterized the mood of arts, of letters, of morals then prevalent.

The author openly preaches and praises himself for preaching; he does not hesitate to slip into the drama and deliver a sermon; he talks the story out with many self-interruptions and excursions; he knows nothing of the modern method of letting it walk along on its own legs, but is always putting his hands under its arms and helping it, or his arm across its shoulder and caressing it. In all this, which I think wrong, he is probably doing quite right for the boys who formed and will always form the greatest number of his readers; boys like to have things fully explained and commentated, whether they are grown up or not. In much else, in what I will not say are not the great matters, he is altogether right. By precept and by example he teaches boys to

Keep listening free

Contents

  1. TOM BROWN'S SCHOOLDAYS
  2. Illustrated by Louis Rhead
  3. PART I.
  4. CHAPTER I—THE BROWN FAMILY
  5. CHAPTER II—THE “VEAST.”
  6. CHAPTER III—SUNDRY WARS AND ALLIANCES.
  7. CHAPTER IV—THE STAGE COACH.
  8. CHAPTER V—RUGBY AND FOOTBALL.
  9. CHAPTER VI—AFTER THE MATCH.
  10. CHAPTER VII—SETTLING TO THE COLLAR.
  11. CHAPTER VIII—THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE.
  12. CHAPTER IX—A CHAPTER OF ACCIDENTS.
  13. PART II.
  14. CHAPTER I—HOW THE TIDE TURNED.
  15. CHAPTER II—THE NEW BOY.
  16. CHAPTER III—ARTHUR MAKES A FRIEND.
  17. CHAPTER IV—THE BIRD-FANCIERS.
  18. CHAPTER V—THE FIGHT:
  19. CHAPTER VI—FEVER IN THE SCHOOL.
  20. CHAPTER VII—HARRY EAST'S DILEMMAS AND DELIVERANCES.
  21. CHAPTER VIII—TOM BROWN'S LAST MATCH.
  22. CHAPTER IX—FINIS.
  23. THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG™ LICENSE

You may also like