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Overview
In this poignant memoir, Charles Spencer recounts the trauma of being sent away from home at age eight to attend a boarding school.
A Very Private School offers a clear-eyed, first-hand account of a culture of cruelty at the school Spencer attended in his youth and provides important insights into an antiquated boarding system. Drawing on the memories of many of his schoolboy contemporaries, as well as his own letters and diaries from the time, he reflects on the hopelessness and abandonment he felt aged eight, viscerally describing the intense pain of homesickness and the appalling inescapability of it all. Exploring the long-lasting impact of his experiences, Spencer presents a candid reckoning with his past and a reclamation of his childhood.
Charles Spencer is the author of seven history books, including Sunday Times bestsellers The White Ship: Conquest, Anarchy and the Wrecking of Henry I’s Dream, Blenheim: Battle for Europe (shortlisted for History Book of the Year, UK National Book Awards), and Killers of the King: The Men Who Dared to Execute Charles I. To Catch a King: Charles II’ s Great Escape was a (London) Times bestseller in 2017 and 2018.
Charles co-hosts the Rabbit Hole Detectives podcast alongside Dr. Cat Jarman and Reverend Richard Coles. He has also presented documentaries for the History Channel and has been interviewed in his capacity as an expert historian on several occasions by the BBC, most recently in the BBC4 three-part series Charles I: Downfall of a King.
He was awarded an MA in Modern History from Magdalen College, Oxford University, before going on to work for the NBC News for a decade, as an on-air reporter for the Today show from 1986-1995 and a presenter for the History Channel.
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Details
- ISBN-13: 9781668046388
- ISBN-10: 1668046385
- Publisher: Gallery Books
- Publish Date: March 2024
- Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.6 x 1.4 inches
- Shipping Weight: 0.85 pounds
- Page Count: 304
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