Donna Tartt, The Secret History

Lindsay Sullivan (Cardiff University)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.2.4: American (US) Writing and Culture: Postwar and Contemporary, 1945-present.
Vol. editors: Sofia Ahlberg (Uppsala University), Patrick Chura (University of Akron), Emory Elliott (University of California, Riverside), Dale Enggass (University of Utah), Christopher Hugh Gair (University of Glasgow), Matthew Hofer (University of New Mexico), Stephen E. Meats (Pittsburg State University), Kerry Myler (Birmingham Newman University), Justin Parks (UiT - The Arctic University of Norway), Nick Selby (University of East Anglia)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1992

Places

United States (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Novel
- Bildungsroman

Resources

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Donna Tartt reputedly received a $450,000 advance for

The Secret History

. In addition to being a commercial success, the novel has been translated into over twenty languages and has received much critical acclaim. One of the novel’s epigraphs is from Book 2 of Plato’s

Republic

: “Come then, and let us pass a leisure hour in storytelling, and our story shall be the education of our heroes”. Part murder mystery, part

Bildungsroman

and part campus novel,

The Secret History

tells the story of a group of Classics students who, in the act of re-creating a Dionysian bacchanal, accidentally kill a stranger, and then, to cover their tracks and preserve their freedom, murder one of their own group. The novel is narrated by (John) Richard Papen, and tells of his friendships with Henry Winter,…

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2226 words

Citation: Sullivan, Lindsay. "The Secret History". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 03 May 2005 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=11693, accessed 20 April 2024.]

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