Tim

by Howard Overing Sturgis

A delicate boy at an English public school forms an attachment to an older pupil that is the whole of his emotional life. Sturgis kept an open house at Windsor where Henry James and Edith Wharton were regulars and did needlework while his guests talked; this quiet novel about a schoolboy's love was published in 1891 and says, without ever saying, what could not then be said.

168 pages, Kindle Edition

Published February 22, 2026

About the author

Howard 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.