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A Very Private School by Charles Spencer

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A Very Private School

A Memoir

by Charles Spencer

Narrator Charles Spencer

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Length 7 hours 57 minutes

Language English

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Summary
About the author
About the narrator

INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER | NPR “BOOKS WE LOVE” 2024 | PEOPLE’S “BEST CELEBRITY MEMOIRS” 2024 | TOWN & COUNTRY’S “BEST NEW ROYAL BOOKS” 2024 | THE TIMES (LONDON) “10 BEST BIOGRAPHIES AND MEMOIRS” 2024 | WINNIPEG FREE PRESS’S “BEST BOOKS” 2024

“A tour de force.” —The Washington Post

In this poignant memoir, Charles Spencer recounts the trauma of being sent away from home at age eight to attend boarding school.

A Very Private School offers a clear-eyed, first-hand account of a culture of cruelty at the school Charles 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 at 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.

Biography & Memoir Nonfiction

Charles Spencer is the author of seven history books, including Sunday Times (London) 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 Times (London) bestseller in 2017 and 2018. He also cohosts The Rabbit Hole Detectives podcast and has presented historical documentaries for television. 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 Today, and a presenter for the History Channel.