FANDOM NAME: Tell England - Ernest Raymond WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: Tell England is not actually good. It is in fact, very, very bad, but in the kind of way that makes it eminently readable. It is a novel from 1922 that is half schoolboy novel and half World War I novel, telling the story of best friends Rupert Ray and Edgar Doe stretching from their pranks and hijinks at public school to the battle of Gallipoli, where, predictably, things do not end well. So why should you read this ludicrously patriotic, obnoxiously Anglo-Catholic, glurgily sentimental novel about young mens' lives cut tragically short at Gallipoli? Well, two reasons: 1) it is incredibly, astoundingly, ridiculously homoerotic and 2) one of the main characters is canonically, a war poet. Edgar Doe and Rupert Ray have an incredibly close, incredibly charged friendship that one can quite easily tip over into shippable territory, so if intense schoolboy friendships and tragic WWI bromances are your sort of thing, this canon could quite easily be catnip for you. Likewise, if you prefer your Edwardian schoolboy novels with the WWI epilogue fics baked into canon, check this out.
WHERE CAN I FIND IT?(optional):Read it here on Gutenberg!
FANDOM NAME: Eric, or Little by Little - F.W. Farrar WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: Like Tell England, Eric is not actually good in the strictest sense. It is, instead, infamously terrible, and therein lies its greatness. The story of the eponymous Eric's schooldays as he goes from being a reasonably virtuous kid to Falling Into Sin at his Victorian boarding school, the novel is a nonstop parade of glurgy sentimentality, heavy-handed Christian moralizing, anti-masturbation propaganda, high melodrama, and unintentional homoeroticism. Perhaps the best description of it is "English Elsie Dinsmore for boys". Basically, it's completely nuts, and the kind of thing you will definitely wind up sending your friends out of context quotes from. I really cannot in good conscience call it a good book, but it is an incredibly entertaining one that may have you spitting tea all over your keyboard. If you like OTT consequences for drinking illicit alcohol, protagonists who may or may not have the touch of death, and tangents about how masturbation will lead to the fall of the British Empire, this is the book for you.
WHERE CAN I FIND IT?(optional): On Gutenberg, right here.
Two So-Bad-They're-Great Schoolboy Novels
WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: Tell England is not actually good. It is in fact, very, very bad, but in the kind of way that makes it eminently readable. It is a novel from 1922 that is half schoolboy novel and half World War I novel, telling the story of best friends Rupert Ray and Edgar Doe stretching from their pranks and hijinks at public school to the battle of Gallipoli, where, predictably, things do not end well. So why should you read this ludicrously patriotic, obnoxiously Anglo-Catholic, glurgily sentimental novel about young mens' lives cut tragically short at Gallipoli? Well, two reasons: 1) it is incredibly, astoundingly, ridiculously homoerotic and 2) one of the main characters is canonically, a war poet. Edgar Doe and Rupert Ray have an incredibly close, incredibly charged friendship that one can quite easily tip over into shippable territory, so if intense schoolboy friendships and tragic WWI bromances are your sort of thing, this canon could quite easily be catnip for you. Likewise, if you prefer your Edwardian schoolboy novels with the WWI epilogue fics baked into canon, check this out.
WHERE CAN I FIND IT?(optional):Read it here on Gutenberg!
FANDOM NAME: Eric, or Little by Little - F.W. Farrar
WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: Like Tell England, Eric is not actually good in the strictest sense. It is, instead, infamously terrible, and therein lies its greatness. The story of the eponymous Eric's schooldays as he goes from being a reasonably virtuous kid to Falling Into Sin at his Victorian boarding school, the novel is a nonstop parade of glurgy sentimentality, heavy-handed Christian moralizing, anti-masturbation propaganda, high melodrama, and unintentional homoeroticism. Perhaps the best description of it is "English Elsie Dinsmore for boys". Basically, it's completely nuts, and the kind of thing you will definitely wind up sending your friends out of context quotes from. I really cannot in good conscience call it a good book, but it is an incredibly entertaining one that may have you spitting tea all over your keyboard. If you like OTT consequences for drinking illicit alcohol, protagonists who may or may not have the touch of death, and tangents about how masturbation will lead to the fall of the British Empire, this is the book for you.
WHERE CAN I FIND IT?(optional): On Gutenberg, right here.