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The story is another one about the intimate details of a life in a boys’ boarding school in late Victorian England. Farrar, having himself attended such a school, then later been an assistant master at another, Harrow School, then Head Master of Marlborough College, was well placed to write about such a school, and in some ways it is a better book than the much more famous “Eric”.

We hope you will enjoy the story.

The first edition of this book is dated 1862. The edition used is dated 1900. The publisher was Collins Clear-Type Press. The number of pages is 358.

In this book Farrar, who for the first part of his career was a British Public School master and headmaster, writes of the lives of a group of clever young men during their three years studies at Camford University, (transparently Cambridge). Some of them work hard and do well, gaining College scholarships and fellowships, while others do little work and become enmeshed in gambling, drinking, and other still worse vices.

Some miserable tricks are played by the bad and idle men in attempts to bring down the good and hard working ones, most of which nearly end in disaster, but by various tricks of fortune a balance is in the end restored, and the book comes to a satisfactory conclusion.

You will enjoy this book if you do not let yourself be put off by Farrar’s habit of inserting Greek, Latin, French and German tags just to show how very sap he is.

The first edition of this book is dated 1859. The edition used is dated 1912. The publisher was S.W. Partridge & Co., Old Bailey, London. The number of pages is 320.

This famous book tells the story of a boy at a boarding school on the Isle of Man, which lies between England and Ireland, and within sight of Scotland. The boy succumbs to various forms of ill-behaviour, with illicit trips to a bar in the near-by town. There are various scary episodes. Overcome with shame at something he has done Eric runs away to sea, which he finds so horrible an experience that when he is next in England he jumps ship, makes his way home, by now very ill, and dies.

Author’s Preface (Farrar was Headmaster of Marlborough College)

The story of ‘Eric’ was written with but one single object—the vivid inculcation of inward purity and moral purpose, by the history of a boy who, in spite of the inherent nobleness of his disposition, falls into all folly and wickedness, until he has learnt to seek help from above. I am deeply thankful to know—from testimony public and private, anonymous and acknowledged—that this object has, by God’s blessing, been fulfilled.

The fact that new editions are still called for thirty-one years after its publication, shows, I trust, that the story has been found to be of real use. I have not thought it right to alter in any way the style or structure of the narrative, but I have so far revised it as to remove a few of the minor blemishes. I trust that the book may continue to live so long—and so long only—as it may prove to be a source of moral benefit to those who read it.

April 21, 1889.

The first edition of this book is dated 1858. The edition used is dated 1892. The publisher was Adam & Charles Black, Edinburgh and London. The number of pages is 368.