Two College Friends - Paperback

by Frederick W. Loring (Author), Mint Editions (Contribution by)

Two College Friends (1871) is a novel by Frederick W. Loring. Published in the last year of the author's life, Loring's debut novel is a powerful story of male friendship and homosexual desire that shifts from college campus to battlefield in a series of diary entries, letters, and narrative sections. Partly inspired by Loring's life at Harvard, the novel was dedicated to his estranged friend William Chamberlain, who likely served as a model for the character Tom. The Professor, who acts as a mediator between the two young men, was modeled on an unnamed teacher who mentored the author at Harvard and died as Loring "was writing the opening pages of [the] story." Tragic, romantic, patriotic, and bittersweet, Two College Friends is an important work of fiction by an author whose life was cut short before he reached the age of twenty-three.

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Back Jacket

Best friends and college classmates find their friendship strained at the onset of the Civil War. While Ned is commissioned an officer, Tom faces opposition from his parents, who encourage him to complete his Harvard education. After a year of torturous silence, they reunite in a vastly different world. Two College Friends is a novel by Frederick W. Loring.