Dr Wortle's School

Feb 25, 2026 2:21 PM

Author:Anthony Trollope,Mick Imlah,Mick Imlah,Mick Imlah

Dr Wortle's School

Mr Peacocke, a Classical scholar, has come to Broughtonshire with his beautiful American wife to live as a schoolmaster. But when the blackmailing brother of her first husband - a reprobate from Louisiana - appears at the school gates, a dreadful secret is revealed and the county is scandalized. Ostracised by the community, the pair seem trapped in a hopeless situation - until the combative but warm-hearted headmaster of the school, Dr Wortle, offers his support, and Mr Peacocke embarks upon a journey to America that he hopes will lay to rest the accusations once and for all. A perceptive exploration of Victorian morality, Dr Wortle's School (1881) also contains echoes of Trollope's own life, and his personal affection for the vivacious Bostonian Kate Field.

Reviews

'In this superior, self-deprecating thriller, the workings of the plot are secondary to the elegiac realism of the story'

—— Daily Telegraph

'Edric is a terrific storyteller but he also provides a pretty accurate picture of modern-day crime and the way that it affects so many people. Impressive stuff'

—— Observer

'Edric keeps his readers - and Rivers - dangling on a tangled string'

—— Scotsman

'Edric shows his mastery over the complexities of a crime thriller ... Classic whodunit territory and lovers of the genre will find Siren Song right up their street'

—— Yorkshire Evening Post

Intense, elegant, despairing prose...deeply affecting

—— Guardian

A transcendentally harmonious and compassionate work

—— Times Literary Supplement

A surprisingly tender book... Amid the terror a classic story about love sneaks through: love lost, love imagined, love morphed into madness

—— New York Times Book Review

Beautifully written... It puts a human face on the suffering inflicted by the Taliban... Disturbing and mesmerizing, The Swallows of Kabul will stay with you long after you've finished it

—— San Francisco Chronicle

Riveting... Spare, taut, and pristinely clear prose... An uncanny knack for making moral tension palpable... Extraordinarily moving

—— Philadelphia Inquirer

A novel very much in the tradition of Albert Camus, not only in its humanism and concern with the consequences of individual choices but also in its determination to bear witness to the absurdities of daily life... [A] chilling portrait of fundamentalism run amok and its fallout on ordinary people

—— New York Times

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