At the age of fifteen John Knowles started attending school at Phillips Exeter Academy. This was a well-known boarding school in New Hampshire. Exeter was very similar to Devon, the fictional school he describes in his novel "A Seperate Peace". Knowles graduated in 1945; however, he did not attend college immediately afterwards. He joined the war effort instead as a part of the U.S. Army Air Force's Aviation Cadet Program. Afterwards he went to Yale and graduated in 1949, when he traveled to Europe and worked as a journalist. Then in the mid 1950's he returned to the U.S., where he began working on "A Seperate Peace".
             John Knowles wrote "A Seperate Peace" in the 1950's while in the United States. World War II had just ended and that played a major role in what he wrote his book about.
             The story is set in the 1940's at an all boys school in Devon, New England.
             -Gene Forrester was the narrator of the story, a student at Devon during World War II. His best friend at school was Phineas, a superior athlete, while Gene was better known for his academic skills. Gene has a definite dark side lurking beneath the surface, though he appears to be a good, honest person in his everyday life. He goes back to his school fifteen years after he has graduated and describes his stong memories and feelings about what happend in 1942 at Devon in great detail. -Phineas was very confident, affectionate, a remarkable athlete with a disregard for the rules and an innate ability to win people over. He had a way of talking to people that would help him get away with anything. He faced reality just a little at a time, because of this reality didn't change the way he acted. -Leper Lepellier never did anything that anyone else did. He just did his own thing. He wouldn't do something just because everyone else was doing it. ...