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Book Summary and Reviews of A Separate Peace (Scribner Classics) by John Knowles

A Separate Peace (Scribner Classics) by John Knowles

A Separate Peace (Scribner Classics)

by John Knowles

  • Readers' Rating (3):
  • Published:
  • Oct 1996, 208 pages
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About this book

Book 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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Reviews

Media Reviews

"A model of restraint, deeply felt and beautifully written." ―The Observer

This information about A Separate Peace (Scribner Classics) was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

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Author Information

John Knowles

John Knowles (1926–2001) was a graduate of Phillips Exeter Academy and Yale University, as well as a recipient of the William Faulkner Award and the Rosenthal Award of the National Institute of Arts and Letters. His books include Separate Peace, Peace Breaks Out, and The Paragon.

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Read-Alikes

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