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A Separate Peace Paperback - 2016
by John Knowles
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A novel of unrest among 16-year-olds in a boy's school at theopening of WorldWar II.
About this book
Knowles drew on his own experiences at a New England boarding school in order to write this haunting story about the friendship between Gene and Finny. Effectively polar opposites and yet fiercely devoted to each other, Gene and Finny develop a rivalry that sustains each of them. Gene especially tries to emulate Finny's positive qualities to make himself better. But their friendship takes a dark turn as a result of a rash decision that Gene makes while the two are perched on a tree branch. The fallout and ensuing tragedy haunt Gene for the rest of his life. A Separate Peace is a stirring meditation on adolescence, masculinity, guilt, and friendship.
Knowles's classic is an uneasy coming-of-age, set at a boys' boarding school among the desperately carefree 16-year-olds of 1942: too young, still, to be drafted into the war outside; too old to evade the responsibilities and the guilt that follows from the breaking of their fraught and fragile private bonds.
Summary
An American classic and great bestseller for over thirty years, A Separate Peace is timeless in its description of adolescence during a period when the entire country was losing its innocence to World War II.
Set at a boys’ boarding school in New England during the early years of World War II, A Separate Peace is a harrowing and luminous parable of the dark side of adolescence. Gene is a lonely, introverted intellectual. Phineas is a handsome, taunting, daredevil athlete. What happens between the two friends one summer, like the war itself, banishes the innocence of these boys and their world.
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From the publisher
First edition identification
Secker & Warburg published the First UK Edition, First Printing hardcover in London, 1959.
The Macmillan Company published the First US Edition, First Printing hardcover in New York, 1960.
Details
- Title A Separate Peace
- Author John Knowles
- Binding Paperback
- Edition [ Edition: first
- Pages 208
- Volumes 1
- Language ENG
- Publisher Scribner Book Company, New York
- Publication date 2016-05-01
- ISBN 9780743253970 / 0743253973
- Weight 0.44 lbs (0.20 kg)
- Dimensions 8.42 x 5.42 x 0.55 in (21.39 x 13.77 x 1.40 cm)
- Reading level 1030
-
Themes
- Catalog Heading: Classics
- Cultural Region: New England
- Curriculum Strand: Language Arts/Literature
- Geographic Orientation: New Hampshire
- Sex & Gender: Masculine
- Topical: Coming of Age
- Topical: Death/Dying
- Topical: Friendship
- Category Literature - Classics / Criticism
- Library of Congress subjects Death, Historical fiction
- Dewey Decimal Code FIC
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A Separate Peace
by John Knowles
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A Separate Peace
by John Knowles
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A Separate Peace
by John Knowles
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- Paperback
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- Paperback
- ISBN 10 / ISBN 13
- 9780743253970 / 0743253973
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A$8.16Free Delivery to USA
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