Goodbye Mr Chips: The heart-warming classic that inspired three film adaptations

Description

Mr Chipping is a quiet, unassuming teacher at Brookfield Grammar School - a wholly conventional schoolteacher who never veers from his proscribed routines. Until the day he meets Katherine, who charms him and his students and teaches Mr Chipping that education is about more than just the hours spent in the schoolroom. As his love for Katherine blooms, Mr Chipping develops a sense of humour and a broad view of his role as a teacher and a friend to his students, becoming the beloved 'Mr Chips' to generations of schoolboys. Sweeping across four decades, GOODBYE, MR CHIPS features an extraordinary period of history, from the Franco-Prussian War of the 1870s to Hitler's rise to power in the 1930s, and demonstrates that, through it all, love and a good sense of humour can make all the difference. GOODBYE, MR CHIPS is the beloved classic of generations of readers, and sure to delight people of all ages.

James Hilton was born in 1900. He wrote his first novel, Catherine Herself, at the age of twenty while still an undergraduate. For several years he worked as a freelance journalist and book reviewer. And Now Goodbye, published 1931, heralded the success that was to come to him; it was followed in 1933 by Knight Without Armour and Lost Horizon (awarded the Hawthornden Prize in 1934). Goodbye, Mr. Chips appeared in 1934; in 1938 came the stage version, and in 1939 the film. He was invited to go to Hollywood, where he became one of the most popular scenario writers. Random Harvest was published in 1941, and he continued writing until the year before his death, in December 1954, his last book being Time and Time Again. Another major feature film was made in 1969 starring Peter O'Toole.

Here is the triumphant proof that a little book can be a great book. Mr. Chips deserves a place in the gallery of English characters. Never have I known more beautifully rendered a man at peace with life, a finer setting forth of what happy dreams may come when you are old and grey and full of sleep. - The Evening Standard One lays down the book with the satisfaction that comes from contemplation of a piece of work supremely well done. This is too good a book to be borrowed . . . it should be bought - Punch A minor miracle. - New York Times One of the most endearing creations of modern fiction - Telegraph The story of a gentle man among gentlemen - Guardian A masterpiece - New York Herald Tribune A tiny, catch-in-the-throat story... perfectly done. - The New Yorker