A Very Private School

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 NOW WITH A NEW AFTERWORD “A tour de force.” — The Washington Post In this poignant memoir, Charles Spencer—the 9th Earl Spencer and younger brother of the late Princess Diana—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. And now, in a new afterword, Spencer reflects on the aftermath of his memoir’s publication, including the outpouring of support and solidarity from fellow abuse survivors.