Tell England

Tell England: A Study in a Generation is a novel written by Ernest Raymond and published in February 1922 in the United Kingdom about the First World War and the young men sent to fight in it. A film adaptation was released in 1931 under the title Tell England. The book was much beloved, with forty editions printed by Cassell between 1922–69 prior to the first impression printed by Corgi in 1973.

Tell England is dedicated "to the memory of REGINALD VINCENT CAMPBELL CORBET who fell, while a boy, in the East and GEORGE FREDERICK FRANCIS CORBET who passed, while a boy, in the West". The author, Ernest Raymond, named his narrator Rupert Ray in a thinly disguised reference to himself. It has been speculated, therefore, that the character Edgar Doe, who dies in Gallipoli (the East), is based on Reginald Corbet, while the character Archibald Pennybet, who dies on the Western Front, is based on George Corbet.

The novel opens with a prologue by Padre Monty, a character from the second half of the novel. Padre Monty speaks affectionately and retrospectively of the three boys Rupert Ray, Edgar Doe and Archibald Pennybet as they were in childhood. The inference is made that Padre Monty acquired this information from the boys' mothers after-the-fact, given that he first meets them in the Great War.

The novel predates the Just William books and Molesworth stories, but begins in a similar fashion to these books, describing the school lives of Rupert Ray and his friends at their public school, Kensingstowe. The author describes the pranks they play on the masters (teachers) from Ray's perspective. Raymond spends much of the novel setting up the characters and their relationships in this way.

Rupert himself is a shy boy lacking in courage and in need of moral guidance in the absence of a father figure. Edgar, nicknamed the "Grey Doe" is equally shy, but is more sensitive and inclined to fall in love with older men such as their strict master Radley. Both boys are heavily influenced by the older Archibald, "Penny", who enjoys wielding youthful power over others by stirring up acts of mischief. The first half of the book relates Rupert's most dramatic incidents as Kensingtowe, including an ongoing "war" with his Housemaster, the so-called "Carpet Slippers", receiving beatings and punishments, learning to do what is right, and his greatest hour – winning the school relay swimming race, only to be disqualified, then made a prefect on account of his maturity in dealing with the disappointment. Radley is a heavy influence in all this, because he offers Rupert advice and encouragement to make the right choices. In one memorable episode, the entire class has been cheating in Carpet Slippers' history lessons, only for Rupert to admit his guilt by recording a mark of zero after Radley's prompting. The book repeatedly makes dark suggestions as to the boys' future after school. For example, at the end of a triumphant cricket match the masters at Kensingstowe consider what England will do with the young men they are moulding. Radley himself is a weary, beaten figure when he learns that his favourite pupils, Ray and Doe, are off to war.

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