A Separate Peace | Literary Criticism & Book Review

A Separate Peace Critical Overview

John Knowles's A Separate Peace, a critical success from its first printing, has evolved into one of the most frequently read novels in American high schools today. In fact, in the words of its author, it has captured a "destiny apart" from his own. Although Knowles has published many other novels, essays, and works of nonfiction, none has received the critical attention or praise of A Separate Peace. While that novel no longer commands the massive scholarly attention that it did throughout the 1960s, according to Hallman Bell Bryant, It has gone through at least seventy printings and earns Knowles somewhere between $30,000 and $40,000 a year in royalties.

Right from the start, A Separate Peace received extremely favorable notices. Since it was first published by Secker and Warburg in London, England, the British reviewers were the first to Write what they liked about the book. The most significant...
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