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Tim: A Story of School Life
From the back cover:
"Tim," written in 1891, is a delicate portrayal of a sensitive boy's devoted affection for an older boy--a very touching story of a tender and self-forgetful character. Sometimes published with the title Tim: A Story of Eton.
"Tim," written in 1891, is a delicate portrayal of a sensitive boy's devoted affection for an older boy--a very touching story of a tender and self-forgetful character. Sometimes published with the title Tim: A Story of Eton.
318 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1891
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About the author
Howard Overing Sturgis
14 booksHoward Overing Sturgis is also widely known as Howard Sturgis or, especially in german speaking Countries, as Howard O. Sturgis.
He was the youngest son of a rich American living in England. Even as a child, he met Henry Adams, William Makepeace Thackeray and Henry James. Henry James became a friend and mentor of Sturgis. He studied in Eton and Cambridge. After his parents went by, he bought a country house near Eton. There he and his lover William Haynes-Smith frequently entertained their friends, including Henry James, Edith Wharton and George Santayana.
Sturgis is the author of three novels:
• Tim. A Story of School Life (1891)
• All That Was Possible (1895)
• Belchamber (1904).
Tim and Belchamber are gay themed.
After Belchamber has failed he only published one short story (On the Pottlecombe Cornice) in 1908 and ended his career.
He was the youngest son of a rich American living in England. Even as a child, he met Henry Adams, William Makepeace Thackeray and Henry James. Henry James became a friend and mentor of Sturgis. He studied in Eton and Cambridge. After his parents went by, he bought a country house near Eton. There he and his lover William Haynes-Smith frequently entertained their friends, including Henry James, Edith Wharton and George Santayana.
Sturgis is the author of three novels:
• Tim. A Story of School Life (1891)
• All That Was Possible (1895)
• Belchamber (1904).
Tim and Belchamber are gay themed.
After Belchamber has failed he only published one short story (On the Pottlecombe Cornice) in 1908 and ended his career.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
March 6, 2024
I agree with the excellent review by C.B., which was indeed the reason I read this book. It is a very affecting description of a romantic friendship between two Eton schoolboys, set I think in the 1870’s, when the author was there himself. As an evocation of that time and place, it feels just right, and has great charm. The characters are not cardboard, but rendered with real psychological insight. But the syrupy sentimentality is trowelled on so thickly that some tastes will be repelled. At times it was so overdone that I felt like laughing; but I also cried. For anyone with an interest in Victoriana in general or Eton in particular, it is well worth reading.
One thing I didn’t much care for is that my edition is described as part of a “Gay Classics” series. This is a problematic description, especially for a novel which my pious grandmother would have read and enjoyed without any of her many prejudices being the slightest bit stirred. The romance is intense but sexless (or at least any sex is unconscious and undescribed), like the famous biblical love between David and Jonathan, “passing the love of women”, which is quoted on the frontispiece. Instead of a “Gay Classic” (a term which is problematic for many reasons) I prefer C.B’s description of it as a “Camp Classic.” Now excuse me while I adjust my cravat and check in the looking glass to see if the orchid in my buttonhole is still straight.
One thing I didn’t much care for is that my edition is described as part of a “Gay Classics” series. This is a problematic description, especially for a novel which my pious grandmother would have read and enjoyed without any of her many prejudices being the slightest bit stirred. The romance is intense but sexless (or at least any sex is unconscious and undescribed), like the famous biblical love between David and Jonathan, “passing the love of women”, which is quoted on the frontispiece. Instead of a “Gay Classic” (a term which is problematic for many reasons) I prefer C.B’s description of it as a “Camp Classic.” Now excuse me while I adjust my cravat and check in the looking glass to see if the orchid in my buttonhole is still straight.
December 13, 2022
Victorians were nicer than us!
Evidently set around 1870, when the author, like his protagonists, was at school at Eton, Tim recounts with delicacy and acute and witty emotional observation the sentimental but deeply-moving story of its eponym, a sensitive and delicate boy of nine who stumbles into an overwhelming and unassailable love for 13-year-old golden boy Carol Darley, which remains the defining passion of his life until his untimely death at sixteen.
Contemporary critics noted the authenticity of the setting at Eton, and it is surprising how true the portrait of the school still rings. Apart from a little more mild, verbal bullying than has been tolerated in the last twenty or so years, such differences as there are cast the present day in an unfavourable light: the boys then were significantly freer, allowed to keep pets in their rooms for example; though participation in sport was necessary for real popularity, it was not yet compulsory.
One cannot venture far into this tale with becoming aware how very foreign is the emotional landscape. The admired schoolboy hero, Carol, is twice described as walking off publicly arm-in-arm with a friend, while Tim finally secures some social acceptance when he accepts the popular Tommy Weston's offer to go on an expedition to gather primroses. Their housemaster gives Tim a friendly grasp while inviting him out for a leisurely drive and tea. The author exhorts his female readers to take home "any little boys at school near you" and comfort them. Despite stereotypes, Victorians were much warmer than us.
Outside the rigid hierarchy of Eton, no one finds it odd that teenage boys four years apart should enjoy such an emotionally intense friendship. Tim's father and Carol's likely fiancee are both jealous of their love, and the former is self-interestedly scathing about the strength of his son's emotions, but this is not at all the same as challenging its propriety, as would surely be done today, and mostly it drew approbation. 14-year-old Tim can tell his nurse he loves Carol better than anyone in the world except her without eliciting anything but sympathy.
In view of all this, it is hardly surprising that Tim was a critical and commercial success in its own day that is impossible to imagine in today's hard and relatively unfeeling climate. I would find such intensely felt love lacking credibility if I had not some familiarity with other Victorian literature. Some vestige of it endured into the early 20th century; Tim reminds me sometimes of The Secret Garden and The Railway Children, but I fear 21st-century man has lost the knack of such deep feeling. More specifically, such a love of older and younger boys would anyway today be rapidly aborted by unashamed hostility and poisonous suspicion of imagined longings that would actually be beneficent if only they were real.
It is inevitable that some modern gays have claimed Tim as a gay novel, sadly so as it is quite unjustified. True, it is dedicated to a love passing that of women, a reference to David and Jonathan, but few Victorians would have agreed that was remotely sexual, and there are no faint hints of eroticism. Tim's love is pure, by which I do not mean there is anything impure about erotic desire, but simply that his love is not mixed with anything else.
Even if a subconscious link was intended between the boys' emotions and their sexual feelings, this would have to be pederastic rather than gay; their friendship was as unequal as one would expect in view of the age gap, Tim's feelings amounting to hero-worship and Carol's strongly protective. Carol's good looks are described, but in terms that are, if sensual at all, also more pederastic than gay: "a brighter, truer, more boyish boy ... did not exist in all England."
The story is too simple to be truly great literature, but is excellent nonetheless.
Edmund Marlowe, author of Alexander's Choice, another Eton love story, set a century later, https://www.amazon.com/dp/191457107X.
Evidently set around 1870, when the author, like his protagonists, was at school at Eton, Tim recounts with delicacy and acute and witty emotional observation the sentimental but deeply-moving story of its eponym, a sensitive and delicate boy of nine who stumbles into an overwhelming and unassailable love for 13-year-old golden boy Carol Darley, which remains the defining passion of his life until his untimely death at sixteen.
Contemporary critics noted the authenticity of the setting at Eton, and it is surprising how true the portrait of the school still rings. Apart from a little more mild, verbal bullying than has been tolerated in the last twenty or so years, such differences as there are cast the present day in an unfavourable light: the boys then were significantly freer, allowed to keep pets in their rooms for example; though participation in sport was necessary for real popularity, it was not yet compulsory.
One cannot venture far into this tale with becoming aware how very foreign is the emotional landscape. The admired schoolboy hero, Carol, is twice described as walking off publicly arm-in-arm with a friend, while Tim finally secures some social acceptance when he accepts the popular Tommy Weston's offer to go on an expedition to gather primroses. Their housemaster gives Tim a friendly grasp while inviting him out for a leisurely drive and tea. The author exhorts his female readers to take home "any little boys at school near you" and comfort them. Despite stereotypes, Victorians were much warmer than us.
Outside the rigid hierarchy of Eton, no one finds it odd that teenage boys four years apart should enjoy such an emotionally intense friendship. Tim's father and Carol's likely fiancee are both jealous of their love, and the former is self-interestedly scathing about the strength of his son's emotions, but this is not at all the same as challenging its propriety, as would surely be done today, and mostly it drew approbation. 14-year-old Tim can tell his nurse he loves Carol better than anyone in the world except her without eliciting anything but sympathy.
In view of all this, it is hardly surprising that Tim was a critical and commercial success in its own day that is impossible to imagine in today's hard and relatively unfeeling climate. I would find such intensely felt love lacking credibility if I had not some familiarity with other Victorian literature. Some vestige of it endured into the early 20th century; Tim reminds me sometimes of The Secret Garden and The Railway Children, but I fear 21st-century man has lost the knack of such deep feeling. More specifically, such a love of older and younger boys would anyway today be rapidly aborted by unashamed hostility and poisonous suspicion of imagined longings that would actually be beneficent if only they were real.
It is inevitable that some modern gays have claimed Tim as a gay novel, sadly so as it is quite unjustified. True, it is dedicated to a love passing that of women, a reference to David and Jonathan, but few Victorians would have agreed that was remotely sexual, and there are no faint hints of eroticism. Tim's love is pure, by which I do not mean there is anything impure about erotic desire, but simply that his love is not mixed with anything else.
Even if a subconscious link was intended between the boys' emotions and their sexual feelings, this would have to be pederastic rather than gay; their friendship was as unequal as one would expect in view of the age gap, Tim's feelings amounting to hero-worship and Carol's strongly protective. Carol's good looks are described, but in terms that are, if sensual at all, also more pederastic than gay: "a brighter, truer, more boyish boy ... did not exist in all England."
The story is too simple to be truly great literature, but is excellent nonetheless.
Edmund Marlowe, author of Alexander's Choice, another Eton love story, set a century later, https://www.amazon.com/dp/191457107X.
March 23, 2022
This is certainly as ridiculous and overwrought as everyone says it is, but I was really quite enamoured of it for that. Sturgis gives a particularly bohemian and aesthete rendition of the public school romance, telling the story of Tim's love for an older boy called Carol. I think this could be considered a camp classic. This is evinced in such passages as:
‘It had golden hair, where the sun shone on it, like the angels in my window in church, and big blue eyes’ (pp. 26-27)
And this:
'Tim, listening to the history of those two friends [David and Jonathan] long ago, felt his love for his friend almost a religion to him. "Thy love to me was wonderful", said the voice of the reader, "passing the love of woman". "What woman could ever love him as I do?" thought Tim, as he looked naturally to the seat where Carol sat. At that moment a sunbeam from some hole high in the roof fell on the golden curly head which seemed transfigured; and as Tim’s hungry eyes rested on the face of his friend, he turned towards him and smiled upon him in his place.' (pp. 158–59)
And then there are just the plot devices, such as dramatic woundings and illnesses, and Tim's disapproving father. I think this is a delight.
‘It had golden hair, where the sun shone on it, like the angels in my window in church, and big blue eyes’ (pp. 26-27)
And this:
'Tim, listening to the history of those two friends [David and Jonathan] long ago, felt his love for his friend almost a religion to him. "Thy love to me was wonderful", said the voice of the reader, "passing the love of woman". "What woman could ever love him as I do?" thought Tim, as he looked naturally to the seat where Carol sat. At that moment a sunbeam from some hole high in the roof fell on the golden curly head which seemed transfigured; and as Tim’s hungry eyes rested on the face of his friend, he turned towards him and smiled upon him in his place.' (pp. 158–59)
And then there are just the plot devices, such as dramatic woundings and illnesses, and Tim's disapproving father. I think this is a delight.
December 28, 2017
Published in 1891 this novella telling the tragic story of the unrequieted love of the eponymous Tim for a slightly older boy is steeped in the greatest romantic tradition (indeed Goethe's Young Werther gets a mention). This might jarr with the modern reader but perfectly captures teenage idealism and uncompromising attitude to love. The book is however also a surprisingly (for a text of that time) detailed psychological portrait of its characters. This style is engaging despite being often archaic.
I couldn't help drawing flattering comparisons with the Young Tom series by Forrest Reid (published some 40 years later). The heroes are very similar (not only in name) but this book is in some ways much more explicit and as such much more satisfying for the reader.
I couldn't help drawing flattering comparisons with the Young Tom series by Forrest Reid (published some 40 years later). The heroes are very similar (not only in name) but this book is in some ways much more explicit and as such much more satisfying for the reader.
September 19, 2019
“Thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of woman. What woman could ever love him as I do? thought Tim as his hungry eyes rested on the face of his friend.”
November 6, 2019
The title of this book should have been
Greater Love. . .
I implore every single person who can read to read this book. Put it on the wish list, bucket list,sock & stocking list, grocery list and the reading list -just read it.
In this 21st century, we need to give our world another look, this time through eyes like Tim's.
There's nothing I can say that wouldn't be a spoiler so if you like stories about friendship and love, read Tim.
I implore every single person who can read to read this book. Put it on the wish list, bucket list,sock & stocking list, grocery list and the reading list -just read it.
In this 21st century, we need to give our world another look, this time through eyes like Tim's.
There's nothing I can say that wouldn't be a spoiler so if you like stories about friendship and love, read Tim.
September 30, 2021
"Ambos estaban, verdaderamente, muy lejos el uno del otro".
A diferencia de otras joyas de esta casa editorial, esta novela corta permite el desarrollo suficiente de sus personajes y, si bien ambos protagonistas pueden resultar casi caricaturescos a ojos del lector actual, su historia de amor tuvo que suponer toda una revelación en el último cuarto del siglo XIX, cuando fue publicada. Y es precisamente más allá de la obsesión febril de Tim y de la ceguera supina de Carol (¿en serio?) donde se aprecia lo novedoso de esta novelita, pues no solo relata el amor entre dos jóvenes que podría simplemente haber replicado el que existiría entre dos personas de sexos opuestos en la misma época, sino que se atreve a ponerle nombre propio: "más que el amor de las mujeres". Frente a todo, es el personaje del padre de Tim el que me resulta más digno de mención, visto el desarrollo de sus ilusiones ofuscadas, sus expectativas tergiversadas y, finalmente, la necesidad de encontrar algo más que dar en sí mismo. Es un libro triste, sí, pero a diferencia de otros en esta línea y de su época, no es abrupto en su melancólico final.
A diferencia de otras joyas de esta casa editorial, esta novela corta permite el desarrollo suficiente de sus personajes y, si bien ambos protagonistas pueden resultar casi caricaturescos a ojos del lector actual, su historia de amor tuvo que suponer toda una revelación en el último cuarto del siglo XIX, cuando fue publicada. Y es precisamente más allá de la obsesión febril de Tim y de la ceguera supina de Carol (¿en serio?) donde se aprecia lo novedoso de esta novelita, pues no solo relata el amor entre dos jóvenes que podría simplemente haber replicado el que existiría entre dos personas de sexos opuestos en la misma época, sino que se atreve a ponerle nombre propio: "más que el amor de las mujeres". Frente a todo, es el personaje del padre de Tim el que me resulta más digno de mención, visto el desarrollo de sus ilusiones ofuscadas, sus expectativas tergiversadas y, finalmente, la necesidad de encontrar algo más que dar en sí mismo. Es un libro triste, sí, pero a diferencia de otros en esta línea y de su época, no es abrupto en su melancólico final.
December 18, 2023
"I never yet cast a true affection on a woman; but I have loved my friend as I do virtue, my soul, my God… I love my friend before myself, and yet methinks I do not love him enough…"
— Sir Thomas Browne
Nothing is purer than divine devotion, innocent affection, faultless love. Indeed, what woman could ever love Carol as Tim did?
Lovely prose. I absolutely adore this. Just my kind of thing. New top favorite; right up there with Forrest Reid's The Garden God
— Sir Thomas Browne
Nothing is purer than divine devotion, innocent affection, faultless love. Indeed, what woman could ever love Carol as Tim did?
Lovely prose. I absolutely adore this. Just my kind of thing. New top favorite; right up there with Forrest Reid's The Garden God
October 29, 2017
Read it if you are interested in homoerotic literary milestones. The boys’ friendship is pleasingly rendered, but the melodrama and sentimentality are difficult to relate to for contemporary sensibilities.
July 30, 2018
I once purchased a couple of newly hatched pheasant chicks right out of the incubator. They imprinted on my hand, and led a somewhat stunted life, full of highs and lows, mainly related to their proximity to my hand.
Tim starts out a bit like a chick in an incubator. He's got no real friends to speak of and his father is always away. In swoops the boy-next-door with a caress and a basket of grapes, and "Poof!" Tim has imprinted. Things get complicated when Tim's own father returns to find that his son has imprinted on somebody else, and when the neighbor boy's new girlfriend joins the mix things really go nuts.
The whole drama is spread out over a backdrop of golden sunsets, butterflies, flower gardens, babbling brooks, cute puppy dogs and general heaps of bucolic charm. The whole thing reminds me a bit of a William Rankin portrait with pathos and syrup drizzled over it.
Tim starts out a bit like a chick in an incubator. He's got no real friends to speak of and his father is always away. In swoops the boy-next-door with a caress and a basket of grapes, and "Poof!" Tim has imprinted. Things get complicated when Tim's own father returns to find that his son has imprinted on somebody else, and when the neighbor boy's new girlfriend joins the mix things really go nuts.
The whole drama is spread out over a backdrop of golden sunsets, butterflies, flower gardens, babbling brooks, cute puppy dogs and general heaps of bucolic charm. The whole thing reminds me a bit of a William Rankin portrait with pathos and syrup drizzled over it.
March 25, 2013
The hero of this story (if a sickly urchin can be classified as a hero) is Tim. The first paragraph reveals that Tim is an alias and the boy’s name is never revealed. He spends the first few years of his life in ignorance of his family. But his father eventually comes to claim him. Father and son don’t really feel comfortable with each other but Tim does form a liaison with an older boy to fill a gaping void in his life. Tim’s predicament pulls aggressively on your heart strings but this eventually turns to irritation as he proves to be totally inadequate in dealing with life. I can imagine that this story would appeal more to women (especially mothers) than men as it left me in a slight depression and this isn’t the reason I read fiction.
January 4, 2017
Une histoire d'amitié et d'amour non réciproque entre deux jeunes garçons britanniques à la fin du XIXème siècle. Un style un peu ampoulé et mélodramatique par moment, mais c'est aussi l'époque qui veut cela.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews