A clique of elite classics students at a Vermont college is drawn into murder, narrated by an outsider reconstructing how it happened.
Books mentioned in The Secret History (38)
The Republic by Plato: Epigraph: "Come then, and let us pass a leisure hour in storytelling..." — PLATO, Republic, BOOK II; later Julian quizzes Richard on having read "all of Plato," and quotes Plato's definition of Justice "in the Republic."
Unzeitgemässe Betrachtungen (Untimely Meditations) by Friedrich Nietzsche: Epigraph: "A young man cannot possibly know what Greeks and Romans are..." — FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE, Unzeitgemässe Betrachtungen.
Purgatorio by Dante Alighieri: “Henry had got a copy of Dante's Purgatorio from my bookshelf and was reading it, absorbed.”
Inferno by Dante Alighieri: “Bunny packs "a copy of Dorothy Sayers's translation of Inferno"; later, in discussion of Klytemnestra's speech, Francis references "those really hideous parts of Inferno, ... Pier de Medicina with his nose hacked off."”
The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri: “"Do you know," he said, "what Julian says about the Divine Comedy?" "No, Henry, I don't." "That it's incomprehensible to someone who isn't a Christian? ... if one is to read Dante, and understand him, one must become a—"”
Paradise Lost by John Milton: “"A translation of Paradise Lost." "Into what language?" "Latin," he said solemnly.”
Lycidas by John Milton: “Of the poem Henry read at Bunny's funeral: "It would have been so easy for him to choose something else ... from Lycidas or the Upanishads or anything, really."”
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald: “When I could no longer concentrate on Greek ... I read The Great Gatsby.”
Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens: “I'd been reading to Francis, Our Mutual Friend—funny, now I think about it, how much my time with Francis at the hospital in Boston was like the time that Henry spent at the hospital in Vermont with me.”
Ivanhoe by Walter Scott: “"There's a first edition of Ivanhoe here." "Actually, I think they sold that one," said Francis.”
Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson: “He stayed in his room eating peanuts, and drinking, and looking out the window like the old pirate in Treasure Island.”
Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray: “"He had been trying to teach me to play piquet ("because it's what Rawdon Crawley plays in Vanity Fair")."”
As You Like It by William Shakespeare: “I'm too busy sewing those dammed costumes for fucking As You Like It.”
The Charge of the Light Brigade by Alfred Tennyson: “He'd been very fond of the corny old poems he'd learned in grade school: 'The Charge of the Light Brigade,' 'In Flanders Fields.'”
In Flanders Fields by John McCrae: “He'd been very fond of the corny old poems he'd learned in grade school: 'The Charge of the Light Brigade,' 'In Flanders Fields.'”
Chatterton by Alfred de Vigny: “Théophile Gautier, writing about the effect of Vigny's Chatterton on the youth of Paris, said that in the nineteenth-century night one could practically hear the crack of the solitary pistols.”
The Revenger's Tragedy by Cyril Tourneur: “When I was writing my dissertation, on Tourneur's The Revenger's Tragedy, I received the following letter from Francis.”
The White Devil by John Webster: “Even the titles of their plays were strangely seductive ... The Malcontent. The White Devil. The Broken Heart.”
The Malcontent by John Marston: “Even the titles of their plays were strangely seductive ... The Malcontent. The White Devil. The Broken Heart.”
The Broken Heart by John Ford: “Even the titles of their plays were strangely seductive ... The Malcontent. The White Devil. The Broken Heart.”
Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe: “I often thought of these lines of his, from Doctor Faustus: I think my master shortly means to die / For he hath given me all his goods…”
Marino Faliero by Byron: “Byron's Marino Faliero, bound in black leather, with the date 1821 stamped in gold on the spine.”
History of Art by H. W. Janson: “He nodded at the open book beside him—Janson's History of Art, which was cut practically to tatters.”
With Rue My Heart Is Laden by A. E. Housman: “[Henry] read, inaudibly and without comment, a short poem by A. E. Housman. The poem was called 'With Rue My Heart Is Laden.'”
The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot: “It was many years later ... when I came across this passage in The Waste-Land: Elizabeth and Leicester / Beating oars / The stern was formed / A gilded shell...”
The Bacchae by Euripides: “I thought of the Bacchae, a play whose violence and savagery made me uneasy, as did the sadism of its bloodthirsty god.”
Iliad by Homer: “"There was no signature, but instead a tag from the Iliad, in Greek ... Be strong, saith my heart; I am a soldier; I have seen worse sights than this." Also: "that line from the Iliad I love so much, about Pallas Athene and the terrible eye”
The Aeneid by Virgil: “But remember poor Palinurus in the Aeneid? He lingered around and haunted them for the longest time.”
Agamemnon by Aeschylus: “Camilla recites Klytemnestra's speech in Greek: "Thus he died, and all the life struggled out of him ..."; Julian calls it "that glorious speech of Klytemnestra's in the Agamemnon."”
Poetics by Aristotle: “'Aristotle says in the Poetics,' said Henry, 'that objects such as corpses, painful to view in themselves, can become delightful to contemplate in a work of art.'”
Parmenides by Plato: “It was late the next afternoon ... and I'd been at my desk nearly all day reading the Parmenides.”
Le Bateau ivre (The Drunken Boat) by Arthur Rimbaud: “Francis's suicide letter: "Mais, vrai, j'ai trop pleuré! Les aubes sont navrantes. What a sad and beautiful line that is."”
Goodbye, Columbus by Philip Roth: “"I wouldn't advise you to go out and buy a copy of Goodbye, Columbus" (required, notoriously, in one of the freshman English classes).”
Eclogues by Virgil: “Trying to recall a Plotinus title: "The Eclogues? No, dammit, that was Virgil."”
Odes by Pindar: “Julian's note "asking me to translate an ode of Pindar's for our first class."”
Theogony by Hesiod: “This led into an even longer argument ... about whether Hesiod's primordial Chaos was simply empty space or chaos in the modern sense of the word.”
Mary Poppins by P. L. Travers: “Camilla struggled on tiptoe to pull down her umbrella, which dragged her along in little skipping steps— Mary Poppins in her black funeral dress.”
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll: “polishing the leaves with meticulous care, like some crazed gardener from Alice in Wonderland.”