Thomas Hughes’s Tom Brown at Oxford is the sequel to his hugely popular Tom Brown’s School Days, following the hero from school to university. The novel traces Tom’s experiences as an Oxford undergraduate, with all the friendships, temptations, sport, study, and growing pains of student life, as he matures into manhood.
Hughes uses Tom’s Oxford years to explore questions of character, faith, social class, and moral responsibility, in keeping with the earnest spirit of his earlier book. The result is both an entertaining college novel and a thoughtful study of a young man’s development. For readers who enjoyed Tom Brown’s schooldays, or who are interested in Victorian Oxford and the literature of university life, it offers a rich and engaging continuation.