Adventures of a Three-guinea Watch

by Talbot Baines Reed

creasing to the bottom right corner of the front board. shelf wear along the edges and ends of the cover and spine. pages are clean, bright and tight.

352 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1883

About the author

Talbot Baines Reed (3 April 1852 – 28 November 1893) was an English writer of boys' fiction who established a genre of school stories that endured into the second half of the 20th century. Among his best-known work is The Fifth Form at St. Dominic's. He was a regular and prolific contributor to The Boy's Own Paper (B.O.P.), in which most of his fiction first appeared. Through his family's business, Reed became a prominent typefounder, and wrote a classic History of the Old English Letter Foundries.

Reviews

[Farseer · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first of Talbot Baines Reed's novels, serialized in The Boy's Own Paper in 1880. This one is a bit different than his other boarding school novels, because it is told from the point of view of a watch. Yes, you have read correctly, the first person narrator is a watch, bought for the first time by a father to give to his young son as a gift on occasion of the boy's leaving home for the first time to go to a boarding school called Randlebury.

We see the innocent delight of the boy, Charlie Newcome, with such an awesome possession as a silver watch, and how he makes a nuisance of himself by insisting that everyone should ask him the time. During his train ride to school he meets a lady, and through casual conversation they find out Charlie is going to the same school as the lady's son, a boy called Tom Drift. The lady asks Charlie to promise that he will be a good friend to his son, and Charlie makes the promise.

The novel then goes on to explore the consequences of that promise throughout the life of these characters, because Charlie takes it very seriously, even though Tom Drift is not an easy boy to befriend.

Only the first third of the novel takes part in school. Charlie finally manages to befriend Tom and through his example lead him away from the temptations and bad companies that were dragging him down.

Once they leave school, however, Tom's weakness of character takes hold of him and he ends up in a very low situation. The watch, meanwhile, goes through the hands of different owners, but one way or the other always seems to come back to the main characters, or to people near them, wishing to return sometime to its original owner, Charlie.

I had some misgivings about the limitations of the point of view chosen, but after a rough patch during the time the watch was in Tom's hands, after leaving school, Reed's storytelling ability comes through. All the virtues of his later books can also be found here, his readability, his storytelling, his sense of humour... The main flaw is that the moralizing is at times more heavy-handed than in his other books.

In the end we get a satisfactory resolution to the different plot threads, and the watch's role ends up being more crucial than we would have expected.

[Patrick · Rating 5 out of 5]

I stumbled upon Talbot Baines Reed while doing an online search for a young adult book entitled Follow My Leader, written by James B. Garfield in 1957, about a blinded boy and his guide dog. I had read it while in 6th grade and wanted to revisit it 50 years later. During that search, I turned up another YA book with the same title, this one by Talbot Baines Reed, written in 1885. I figured “what the heck” and decided to read it, thinking it would be interesting to see what young adults were up to almost 150 years ago. It is about the adventures of three school boys at a boarding school in England. It turned out that I really enjoyed the book.

I decided to delve further into Talbot Baines Reed, and downloaded his first book, The Adventures of a Three Guinea Watch. It also takes place in England, and follows the “life” of a pocket watch, through various eras of its journey through life. It is very well written and I really enjoyed it. At first, I was dubious, wondering how this could be of any interest, but the characters were so well developed and relatable, that I really fell for it. The author has a keen eye for human nature and uses the watch’s various “masters” to explore different themes, including friendship, loyalty, self-destructive tendencies, etc. I felt is was well worth reading. As a bonus, I had the opportunity to learn a number of archaic britishisms. Some of the conversations between the main character (i.e. the watch) and various other items in the master's pockets are amusing.