The old headmaster, shortly to retire, engages in a little light chat after the job interview: ‘Looks as if we shall have to settle with the Prussians ourselves one of these fine days, eh?’ The book’s hero, Chipping – we never learn his Christian name – was born in 1848, the year of revolutions, and first went to teach Latin at Brookfield School in 1870, the year of the Franco-Prussian War. The narrative stretches further in time than that suggests, but the shadow of war hangs over everything. And, perhaps as a consequence of his age, Goodbye, Mr Chips is the best novel about the impact of that conflict that I know. James Hilton was born in 1900, spending his public-schooldays during the First World War, just too young to be called up for active service.
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