Spencer’s analysis of the culture that allowed schools like Maidwell to flourish is fairly basic ... He’s shrewd, however, on the alternating obsequiousness and resentment so often shown by English schoolmasters toward pupils of higher social birth than themselves. As an individual testimony to the abuse that scarred a lifetime and hobbled his marriages, it is a tour de force.
Excruciatingly sad ... Of all the accounts I have read of boarding-school misery, this one gets top marks for its searing frankness, framed in wistfully beautiful prose.
Searing, heartbreaking ... Spencer is acutely observant of the myriad power imbalances at play within this imperial throwback ... His turn of phrase is often delightful.
