The Fifth Form at St. Dominic's

The Fifth Form at St. Dominic's

Cover of the First Edition (1887)
Author	Talbot Baines Reed
Illustrator	Gordon Browne
Country	England
Language	English
Genre	Novel
Publisher	Religious Tract Society, London
Publication date	1887
Media type	Print (Hardback)

The Fifth Form at St. Dominic's (published 1881) is the best known of the school stories by the late nineteenth century author Talbot Baines Reed. The stories as well as the book were written for the Boy's Own Paper and published by the Religious Tract Society, with illustrations by Gordon Browne.

Reed had no personal experience of a public school education himself; consequently, the book lacked some of the realism of other comparable books like Tom Brown's Schooldays and Eric, or, Little by Little.

However, the book was written with great enthusiasm and it started a tradition of boarding school stories in British juvenile fiction that lasted until the end of World War II.

References

• Carpenter, Humphrey and Mari Prichard. Oxford Companion to Children's Literature. Oxford University Press, 1997. ISBN 0-19-860228-6
• Zipes, Jack (ed) et al. The Norton Anthology of Children's Literature: The Traditions in English. W. W. Norton, 2005. ISBN 0-393-32776-0
• Zipes, Jack (ed.). The Oxford Encyclopedia of Children's Literature. Volumes 1-4. Oxford University Press, 2006. ISBN 0-19-514656-5
• Watson, Victor, The Cambridge Guide to Children's Books in English. Cambridge University Press, 2001. ISBN 0-521-55064-5

External links

• E-text of The Fifth Form at St. Dominic's
• British Library: Children's Literature
• Search publishing histories: Copac: Academic & National Library Catalogue at the University of Manchester.
• Another website: British Library: Integrated Catalogue.
• Search: Library of Congress Online Catalog
• Search: National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections