John Knowles won both critical and popular success with his first novel, A Separate Peace. In the 40 years since its publication, the novel has become a classic for both young adults and adult readers. Although he has written eight other novels, including Peace Breaks Out, which shares the prep school setting of the earlier novel, Knowles has not yet repeated the success of his first work. The author's reputation as a writer of fiction still rests on A Separate Peace.
Knowles was born in 1926, in Fairmont, West Virginia. He spent his childhood in the small town of a coal-mining region, attending public schools. At 15, he left Fairmont for Phillips Exeter Academy, an elite prep school in New Hampshire. Knowles found Exeter both socially and academically challenging, and his experiences there inspired at least two of his later works: A Separate Peace (1959) and Peace Breaks Out (1981), in which Exeter is reconceived as Devon School.
Knowles graduated early from Exeter in August 1947 because of his participation in the summer Anticipatory Program, a special wartime term, like Devon's Summer Session, meant to prepare boys for military service. In the fall of 1944, Knowles entered Yale University to study English. After serving for eight months in the U.S. Army Air Corps, Knowles returned to Yale, receiving a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1949.
