1. Tom Brown's Schooldays draws frequently on an academic, schoolboy, and sports vocabulary that may be un familiar to modern readers. Using the Oxford English Dictionary or other appropriate sources, develop a glossary of unfamiliar terms. Do you think that the inclusion of these terms stregthens or weakens the novel?

2. Tom Brown's Schooldays is the first of many so-called "prep school novels."

The most famous American examples are J. D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye and John Knowles's Separate Peace.

Read one of these works and compare it to Hughes's novel.

3. Hughes wrote a sequel to Tom Brown's Schooldays called Tom Brown at Oxford. Read it and compare the two works. Which do you find more interesting? Why? Are Hughes's views consistent in the two books?

4. Hughes believed that team sports such as Rugby football and cricket were superior to individual...