Born in 1893, Peter and his adopted cousin Joan are passed between eccentric guardians and a series of schools, from progressive experiments to grim boarding establishments. Their guardian Oswald, a scarred ex-imperial officer, struggles to find them a real education, and the novel follows them to adulthood, love and the war, which tests everything they have been taught.
Wells’s sprawling indictment of English education and an absorbing family chronicle. Download the free EPUB.