Floreat Etona: Anecdotes and Memories of Eton College

Nevill, Ralph, 1865-1930Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 2.7
Word count
493K words
Chapters
50

Tags

English Originals Documentary LiteratureEducation Campus LifeEnglish EducationAnecdotesGrowing UpAlumni BondHeartwarming NarrativeSchool MemoriesVictorian Era

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Floreat Etona: Anecdotes and Memories of Eton College by Ralph NevillAuthor: Nevill, Ralph, 1865-1930,Language: English, Class: LF: Education: Individual institutions: Europe, Release Date: Dec 19, 2016

Editor's review

Compiled by Ralph Nevill, this is a collection of anecdotes and memories of Eton College and a part of early twentieth-century British public school culture writing. Its value lies in preserving a wealth of campus life in an easy style: masters' eccentricities, boys' pranks, traditional ceremonies, and the everyday details of boarding life, reading almost like an informal chronicle of public school customs. For readers studying the history of British elite education, public school literature, or social mores from the Victorian to the Edwardian era, this book offers an entertaining profile beyond official histories. A caveat: it carries a distinctly period standpoint and an insider's perspective, and critical reflection on the public school system is not its purpose. It is best read as memoir-like fragments of historical material rather than a systematic history of education, and its proper measure emerges when read alongside relevant social histories.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Not a good fit for

Reading tips

  1. Can be read by selection; an anecdote collection need not be read in order from start to finish
  2. Note the author's period standpoint and distinguish personal memory from institutional fact
  3. Read alongside social histories of British public schools to avoid a single perspective
  4. In the original English, begin with short anecdotes and expand once accustomed to the style

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12
  13. 13
  14. 14
  15. 15
  16. 16
  17. 17
  18. 18
  19. 19
  20. 20
  21. 21
  22. 22
  23. 23
  24. 24
  25. 25
  26. 26
  27. 27
  28. 28
  29. 29
  30. 30
  31. 31
  32. 32
  33. 33
  34. 34
  35. 35
  36. 36
  37. 37
  38. 38
  39. 39
  40. 40
  41. 41
  42. 42
  43. 43
  44. 44
  45. 45
  46. 46
  47. 47
  48. 48
  49. 49
  50. 50

FAQ

Is this an official history of Eton College? No. Judging by its title and content, it is a compilation of anecdotes and memories, focusing on amusing incidents and personal recollections of campus life rather than a chronological official history. Readers seeking institutional development and archival data should consult specialized works of educational history.
Can I understand it without knowing about Eton College? You can follow the gist, but some anecdotes involve school traditions, forms of address between masters and boys, and details of boarding life that may lose their interest without background. It is advisable to first learn the basic system and terminology of British public schools; reading will then be much smoother.
Does the book show obvious class bias? As the recollections of an early twentieth-century public school insider, it is written largely from an appreciative and nostalgic standpoint, lacking critical reflection on the class character and limitations of the public school system. Readers should keep a sense of distance and treat it as a period text rather than a neutral record.

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Nevill, Ralph, 1865-1930 Author · British · 1865–1930

Ralph Nevill (1865–1930) was a British writer whose biographical details are limited in publicly available sources; he is chiefly remembered for his writings on London social life and club culture. His works draw heavily on personal observation and anecdote, combining historical interest with an essayistic style. Two of his books are held in this collection: Floreat Etona: Anecdotes and Memories of Eton College, which recalls school life through anecdotes and reminiscences, and Light Come, Light Go: Gambling—Gamesters—Wagers—The Turf, which examines gambling, gamblers, wagers and horse racing, sketching the social mores of the period. His attention to detail and firsthand observation makes his work accessible reading for the study of upper-class social and leisure culture in late Victorian and Edwardian Britain.