MR. PERRIN AND MR. TRAILL

OR, THE GODS AND MR. PERRIN

Mr. Perrin and Mr. Traill; Or the Gods and Mr. Perrin was first published by Mills and Boon in 1911. Mills and Boon was established in 1908 by Gerald Rusgrove Mills and Charles Boon. While the publisher would become famous for its romantic fiction after the 1930’s, its early releases featured a wide array of genres, including crime stories, Shakespeare and P. G. Wodehouse. Walpole’s novel sold well and was his first significant success in the literary world. He would later comment in 1936 that he considered this work to be ‘probably the truest’ he had ever produced. The book was heavily influenced by Walpole’s experiences as both a pupil and teacher. He attended a series of schools during his childhood, where he frequently suffered from bullying and periods of great distress and unhappiness, while his fairly brief time teaching at Epsom College — the chief inspiration for the work — was challenging and unsatisfying.

The narrative is set in a boys’ public school in Cornwall, where Perrin has been teaching for two decades and is deeply unpopular and bitter. He leads a miserable life, emerged in his sense of loneliness, with only a tiny glimmer of hope provided by the possibility that one day Isabel Desart — a friend of one of Perrin’s colleagues — may love him. Any chance of happiness is soon destroyed by the arrival of the young, enthusiastic and popular new teacher, Mr. Traill. The antagonism Perrin feels towards the recent recruit escalates from mild annoyance to violent urges as he becomes overwhelmed by his hate. There are two endings to the novel; the original darker conclusion and the lighter and more hopeful ending that Walpole wrote for the later American edition. Both endings are provided in this digital edition for the reader.

The novel was later adapted for a 1948 British film directed by Lawrence Huntingdon and starring David Farrar, Edward Chapman, Greta Gynt and Raymond Huntley.