Tom Brown at Oxford

Tom Brown #2

by Thomas Hughes

The exciting sequel to Tom Brown's School Days finds Tom enrolled at Oxford. [Facsimile reprint edition.]

Genres: Classics, Fiction, Literature, 19th Century, Victorian, School

552 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1880

About the author

Librarian note: There is more than one author by this name on Goodreads.

Thomas Hughes was an English lawyer and author. He is most famous for his novel Tom Brown's Schooldays (1857), a semi-autobiographical work set at Rugby School, which Hughes had attended. It had a lesser-known sequel, Tom Brown at Oxford (1861).

Reviews

[Brian Eshleman · Rating 3 out of 5]

As an enrollment counselor at a community college, I really like this book as an opportunity to see what has changed about the college student's mindset and what has stayed the same. Since I tend to romanticize the historical, and especially the English, the nearest candor even as HE looked back that college looks easier and more fun from the outside was also welcome.

For some reason, though, the author felt obliged to leave the oxford campus in order to move the plot forward, and I never got into the events of it. The West third of the book was a real struggle.

[Mary Pagones · Rating 2 out of 5]

Finished as in, I'm not reading this book any more, and since 1. the author is long dead, 2. he already has a place in the British literary canon, and 3. I tried and failed to read his better-known Tom Brown's Schooldays, I'm going to rate it as a warning.

You know how Ang Lee once asked of Emma Thompson if all British people could act? Well, I may have harbored the unconscious bias all British people of the 19th century could write. Hughes has disabused me of this silly notion, because he's one of those writers that really shows what bad writing can be. Long, long passages of treacly homages to British Muscular Christianity (yep, that term is used unironically). No character is allowed to be even amusingly two-dimensional, because the narrator immediately inserts himself between the reader and the character, explaining how you should feel about said character. Like, there was this grumpy, chain-smoking scholarship student I thought could be interesting, but then there's this long, long monologue he has to Tom about how much he loves his sailor father, and how the student didn't even want to accept needed financial assistance to better himself at Oxford because he was too proud. Barf. Lots of mentions of specific references that leave you scrambling to Google, with no clue in the flow of the narrative what they mean in context, like the significance of Windsor chairs.

The thing is, I read so much 19th century literature, I have a high tolerance for narrative moralizing. AND I read this for research about the period, not pleasure. AND I love, love school settings. And I couldn't make it through either book.

Stephen Fry was in the adaptation of Tom Brown's Schooldays, and I saw it as a kid and remember liking it. Maybe I'll hunt that down again.

[Eric · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not as entertaining as Tom Brown's school days, it was fascinating and charming to read about Oxford in the 1840s. We see Tom's character continue to develop as he overcomes temptations of the body and mind.

[joan · Rating 3 out of 5]

What an excellent invention the novel is..

This one is a sort of male-Emma: young man tries to help out, everything goes to pot. But he's (he's a man) also taking up with Abstract Ideas as current in the 1840s, which means Chartism, stale Tradition vs reckless Reform, which the hero manifests as Muscular Christianity. Atheism is only an unsettling premonition. The dialectic is securely Christian, Muscular vs Ascetic.

Much of the book actually takes place in deep traditional England, but Reform is focussed on the cities. Country problems stem from human corruption, which makes them fixable with a frank man to man chat, and some fly fishing. Perhaps it's a fault that preserving the rural pattern as something integral to reform isn't gone into, but perhaps the full effect of the machines wasn’t yet apparent.

It isn't a very good novel - too many coincidences, stock characters, and a long and exhaustive wrap-up of the various storylines. But the message at its heart, something like Live in Earnest, or Tell the Truth, or You'll Pay for Everything you Do and Everything you Don't Do, is sound and worth spending time with. It’s Jordan Peterson's message ain't it. It’s a world of maximum jeopardy chaos theory: a dalliance with a girl can ruin her life and perhaps ripple out to ruin the entire nation. But a kind honest pledge can set things going the other way.

Next stop, Carlyle.

[Frightful_elk · Rating 3 out of 5]

Probably only recommended for hardcore 'Tom Brown's Schooldays' fans.

I'm afraid it can't touch that prequel though, the story is more confused and expansive, it lacks the clarity and perspective of the former, probably due to having a much wider sphere of vision.

Hughes is trying to talk about the state of the nation rather than speaking through the allegory of a microcosm (Formerly Rugby).

While Rugby was an anchor, Oxford is a merely a backdrop. At Rugby there was a clear arc of development in Toms character, there is no parallel in this book only Tom's confusion and struggle with successive ideas.

The issues he deals with are for the most part irrelevant today, but the book has it's moments. At the very least I am sure readers will still recognise Tom's fellow students from their own University days.

[Lee Miller · Rating 3 out of 5]

EDIT: I did finish the book, it got significantly better in the second half, but it is WAY too long. A good editor could chop 50% of this book out and make it a significantly better book.

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LOVED Tom Browns School Days - but I'm halfway through this and have hardly enjoyed a page. It is confused, rambling, excessively prescriptive in what you should think about the characters, and it just goes on and on and does not get anywhere.

If I start a book, I almost always finish it, but I can't see the point - there is NO story.

I think today will be its last read, unless some plot emerges from the swamp or ramblings.

[Lesley Anne · Rating 5 out of 5]

I recently came across this and, as a lover of Victorian novels, I thought I would try reading it. It is the sequel to 'Tom Brown's Schooldays', one of the earliest school stories and tells of Tom's experiences when he becomes a student at Oxford and struggles to balance the temptations of university life at the time with his innate sense of decency. The author, Thomas Hughes, seizes every opportunity to preach to the reader but nevertheless it is an enjoyable read and provides some interesting observations regarding the class distinctions that were prevalent in Victorian England.

[Darcy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tom Brown at Oxford takes place where Schoolboys left off. It tells us what happens to Tom once he leaves Rugby and goes to Oxford. Of course there are plenty of adventures including a scandalous affair with a barmaid, a mob of angry farmers, and plenty of crew regattas. Tom makes plenty of wonderful new friends and even falls in love. If you like Tom Brown Schooldays you will probably like At Oxford. Keep in mind, it is a full blown Victorian novel—which mostly means it is really long.

[Christopher · Rating 4 out of 5]

What starts as a fun romp around 1840s Oxford University ends as a philosophical novel about growing up and dealing with difficult political issues concerning poverty, democracy, and meritocracy.