The Secret History

Donna Tartt, an American writer, published her first novel, The Secret History, in 1992. It is a campus novel set at Hampden College, a small and elite liberal arts college in Vermont.

Richard Papen arrives at the college from a modest background in California and talks his way into the Classics class: six students taught by one professor, and almost nobody else. The group is a closed world of Greek texts and shared manners, and belonging to it costs a great deal.

The story is told by Richard years later, looking back on the situation that led to the death of one of the group, Bunny Corcoran. Because he begins with the death, the novel is less about who did it than about how the group talked itself into it and then had to live with what followed.

Tartt writes the book as an inverted detective story, in which the murder is revealed near the start and the events leading up to it are unfolded in order. It is a standalone novel, and it drew wide attention to Tartt as a first-time writer.