Novel
The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green
Cuthbert Bede · 1853
Opening lines
IF you will refer to the unpublished volume of "Burke's Landed Gentry", and turn to letter G, article "GREEN," you will see that the Verdant Greens are a family of some respectability and of considerable antiquity.
Text quoted from gutenberg.org
Synopsis
The son of an old Warwickshire family, raised at the manor by his mother and aunt without going through a public school, the hero learns Latin and Greek from the parish rector, who persuades his father, himself never having gone to university, to send him to Oxford. At the imaginary college of Brazenface, the naive young man becomes the target of his fellows' hoaxes, foremost among them little Mr Bouncer. He runs up debts with the tailors, learns to row, and ends up paying others back with the tricks that were played on him.
Context
The book appeared in three parts, in 1853, 1854 and 1857, from three successive publishers, with its author's own drawings, and it was intended for sale at railway stations. It passed one hundred thousand copies in its author's lifetime. He had studied at Durham and had spent only a year at Oxford, around 1849 and 1850, without matriculating, which did not stop him from describing its customs: the credit of the tradesmen, the drinking parties, the boats on the river, the hoaxes played on newcomers.
Who it is for
Three parts first published separately and illustrated by the author; no known French or Spanish translation.
Prizes and reception
A lasting railway-station success: a title page from the 1870s announces the hundred and seventh thousand.
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