50 Fun Facts About The Secret History

What does the prologue of The Secret History reveal at once, turning the usual murder mystery upside down?

Who the killers are is settled on the first page, where the narrator admits that he and his friends murdered a classmate. The suspense lies in why, which led one critic to call the book a murder mystery in reverse.

The Secret History is credited with originating which literary subgenre, later a hit aesthetic on social media?

Dark academia mixes Gothic gloom with old libraries, tweed and candlelit study. The online trend first grew up around fans of this one novel, decades after it was published.

Which twentieth-century milestone is news to Henry Winter, the most learned student in The Secret History?

The moon landing comes as a surprise to Henry, a prodigy who reads Homer and Plato for pleasure. He lives so far from the modern world that the news never reached him.

Hampden College, the small elite school where The Secret History unfolds, lies in which New England state?

Vermont gives the novel its long, brutal winters. One of them nearly kills the narrator, who is too proud to tell his friends he has nowhere warm to stay over the break.

In The Secret History, how are Charles and Camilla Macaulay, the inseparable pair of the Greek class, related?

Fraternal twins and orphans, the Macaulays often host the group for dinner. Their bond is marked by a jealousy and protectiveness that grow more troubling as the story goes on.

How do his fellow students kill Bunny Corcoran in The Secret History, hoping the death will pass as an accident?

Pushed into a ravine on one of his regular Sunday walks, Bunny falls to his death. Henry does the pushing while the other four look on.

Which Greek god do Henry Winter and his friends try to summon with a secret woodland rite in The Secret History?

Dionysus was the god of wine and ecstatic frenzy, and the students hope to lose themselves as his ancient worshippers did. Their professor's lectures on divine madness plant the idea.

Which actress was to produce a film of The Secret History with her brother directing, a project shelved in 2002?

Gwyneth Paltrow and her brother Jake struck a deal with Miramax in 2002, with Jake set to direct. They shelved the project when their father, Bruce Paltrow, died later that year.

Which later novel by Donna Tartt, the author of The Secret History, won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction?

The Goldfinch, her third novel, took the 2014 Pulitzer. Tartt has spent about ten years writing each of her books, so readers waited two decades for it after her debut.

Which scholarship student tells the story of The Secret History, looking back years after the murder?

Richard Papen narrates at twenty-eight, still haunted by his first year at Hampden. He paints himself as a bystander, though the story shows a willing accomplice.

What does Bunny Corcoran start doing in The Secret History after he works out that his friends killed a man?

Blackmailing them is almost casual for Bunny, who lets Henry and Francis pay for his meals and travel. His demands and taunts grow until the group fears he will talk.

How does Henry Winter, the leader of the Greek class, die near the end of The Secret History?

He shoots himself in a hotel room as staff try to force the door, moments after an armed Charles has wounded the narrator. His death lets the survivors explain the whole scene away.

How does the Classics professor in The Secret History react on learning that his students killed Bunny Corcoran?

He leaves for good, abandoning his post without a word to the authorities. He never contacts his students again and even stays away from Henry's funeral.

Which charismatic professor teaches Greek to only a hand-picked few at Hampden College in The Secret History?

Julian Morrow was a 1940s socialite who moved among famous poets, Ezra Pound included. His students revere him as a father figure, and he picks them as much for money and connections as for brains.

Who is killed in the woods during the students' frenzied night ritual in The Secret History?

A local farmer dies, and the four who were there can barely recall how it happened. The novel never spells out the details of the killing.

Donna Tartt set The Secret History in New England, but in which Southern state was she born and raised?

Mississippi shaped her early writing: she grew up in the small town of Grenada and had a sonnet in print at thirteen. Like her narrator, she went north to college as a transfer student.

Which fact does Bunny Corcoran, who loves lavish restaurant lunches in The Secret History, keep quiet?

He is penniless, whatever his family's show of money, and cheerfully lives off his friends. He treats the narrator to a boozy lunch, then reveals he cannot pay the bill.

What does the narrator of The Secret History, a newcomer to the Greek class, embellish to fit in?

His background is working-class, so he invents a glamorous one to match his rich friends. He is the only scholarship student among them, and keeping up the act nearly costs him his life.

What do the five students do in The Secret History while the whole campus hunts for the missing Bunny Corcoran?

They join the search parties, combing the woods for a body they know is there. Later they stay at his parents' house and attend the funeral as grieving friends.

In which state does the narrator of The Secret History grow up in a working-class home?

California is home, in a small town called Plano that he finds dull and is desperate to escape. A college brochure seen by chance sets him on the road east.

Which freak April weather hides Bunny Corcoran's body for days after his death in The Secret History?

A heavy snowfall begins soon after the killing and covers the body. Only when rain washes it away is Bunny found, and by then his death is taken for an accident.

Henry Winter takes Bunny Corcoran to which city for a winter break in The Secret History, then flies home alone?

Rome is wasted on Bunny, who cares only about spending as much as possible and ignores its ancient beauty. Henry, worn out and ill, finally slips away without telling him.

Which federal agency questions Henry Winter after Bunny Corcoran vanishes in The Secret History?

The FBI is drawn in after a false sighting suggests that Bunny was taken away by strangers. Agents close the case once his body turns up and the death is ruled an accident.

Which novelist, a college classmate of Donna Tartt, shares the dedication of The Secret History?

Bret Easton Ellis was already a published star as a student and used his contacts to help his friend, whose book went out through his own literary agent. He later tried to bring it to television.

Which real college, attended by Donna Tartt in the 1980s, is the model for Hampden in The Secret History?

Bennington classmates later claimed that the professor and several students in the book were drawn from life. One of them called the novel a thinly veiled account of real people.

What is the real first name of Bunny Corcoran, the murdered student in The Secret History?

Edmund is hardly ever heard: to family and friends alike he is simply Bunny. One of his brothers later gives the nickname to a child of his own.

Henry Winter buys four one-way tickets to which country in The Secret History for an escape that never happens?

Argentina was the plan: the four who killed in the woods meant to fly to Buenos Aires and never return. They cancelled when Francis could not raise the money he had counted on.

Where does the narrator of The Secret History nearly die of cold while lodging alone over the winter break?

A warehouse room with no heating is the cheapest lodging he can find, and he is too ashamed to tell anyone. Henry, back early from abroad, finds him collapsed with pneumonia and takes him to hospital.

For which offence is Charles Macaulay arrested in The Secret History, raising fears that he will expose the group?

Drunk driving, in a vehicle that belongs to Henry, means the two must appear in court together when they can no longer bear to share a room. Henry sends the narrator to post bail in the middle of the night.

Which relative forces Francis Abernathy into an unwanted marriage in the epilogue of The Secret History?

His grandfather finds out that Francis is gay and threatens to cut off his money unless he takes a wife. Under the strain, Francis attempts suicide before the wedding goes ahead.

What does the narrator of The Secret History ask Camilla Macaulay when the survivors reunite in the epilogue?

To marry him is his plea, made years after college while Francis recovers in a Boston hospital. She turns him down, saying she is still in love with Henry.

In the dream that closes The Secret History, where does the narrator meet the dead Henry Winter?

A museum, deserted and futuristic, is the setting, and its exhibit keeps changing into great buildings from around the world. Henry admits he is not happy there, then walks away.

Which course does the narrator of The Secret History give up at his first college because it disgusts him?

Pre-medicine was meant to earn him a good living, but he hated the classes and switched to English literature without telling his parents. Greek was the one subject in which he excelled.

Which exam does Henry Winter refuse to sit in The Secret History because it offends his sense of taste?

The SAT is beneath him, a sign of how entitled the brilliant Henry can be. He never finished high school either, after an accident kept him out of class.

Which condition does Bunny Corcoran, the weakest scholar of the Greek class in The Secret History, live with?

Dyslexia kept him from reading until he was ten, which makes ancient Greek an odd choice of subject. Outsiders still take him for a scholar.

Which working title did Donna Tartt give The Secret History before it was published by Knopf?

The God of Illusions was abandoned before the book reached shops. Knopf ordered a first printing of 75,000 copies, far above the 10,000 usual for a debut, and it became a bestseller.

Which celebrated essayist was hired with her husband to write a screenplay of The Secret History?

Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunne were to adapt it for producer Alan Pakula, who had bought the rights when the book came out. The film died with Pakula, killed in a car crash in 1998.

Which Evelyn Waugh novel, a hit British TV drama in 1981, helped shape the look and mood of The Secret History?

Brideshead Revisited was a craze among Tartt's college classmates, some of whom copied its style on campus. Its character Sebastian Flyte helped inspire Francis Abernathy.

Which tragedy by Euripides, in which frenzied women tear a king apart, partly inspired The Secret History?

The Bacchae ends with King Pentheus of Thebes torn to pieces by worshippers who include his own mother. Tartt moves that ancient frenzy to the woods of New England.

Which condition does the Classics professor in The Secret History set before he accepts the narrator as a pupil?

He must drop his other classes, all but French, and take the professor as his adviser too. A whole degree ends up in the hands of one teacher.

Which detail of Bunny Corcoran's last letter convinces the professor in The Secret History that it is genuine?

The letterhead on its final page comes from the hotel where Bunny and Henry stayed abroad, which no prankster could have known. The letter had been put in the wrong mailbox, so it surfaced long after Bunny died.

Which card game is the only one Bunny Corcoran knows how to play in The Secret History?

Go Fish is all he can manage, so the others play it with him during their weekends at the country house. Henry, by contrast, can recite poetry from memory on a whim.

In The Secret History, which method does Henry Winter first choose for killing Bunny Corcoran?

Poisonous mushrooms were the plan, with Henry eating some himself to avoid suspicion. He asks the narrator to help with the dosage sums and is warned that the scheme is far too risky.

Which American book-jacket designer co-created the first-edition cover of The Secret History for Knopf?

Chip Kidd worked on the hardback with fellow designer Barbara de Wilde. His other jackets include books by Cormac McCarthy, Haruki Murakami and John Updike.

Which poet and classical scholar does Henry Winter read at Bunny Corcoran's funeral in The Secret History?

Bunny liked A. E. Housman and often quoted him, so Henry reads his verse instead of any Greek or Roman author. The modern choice takes the narrator by surprise.

In The Secret History, which lapse does Camilla Macaulay blame for the group's bad luck after the murder?

An unburied corpse is the wrong she has in mind: the man killed on their ritual night was abandoned where he fell. She reads the agonising wait for Bunny to be found as retribution.

Which campus drug dealer draws more police suspicion than the real culprits in The Secret History?

Cloke Rayburn knew Bunny from high school and fears the investigation will expose his dealing. Police do lean on him, but in the end his trade is judged to have nothing to do with the death.

Which alibi covers Henry Winter's accomplices for the afternoon they kill Bunny Corcoran in The Secret History?

A trip to the cinema is their cover: they buy seats for a film, then slip out of the theatre and head for the woods. Henry spells the story out afterwards at Francis's apartment.

In The Secret History, what work does the narrator's father do while his mother answers phones for a living?

He runs a gas station, a world away from the moneyed families of the other Greek students. Tartt's own father owned a service station too.

Who finally finds the body of Bunny Corcoran in The Secret History once the weather turns?

A woman with her dog, a fellow Hampden student, comes across him and alerts the police. With the body found at last, most people assume the death was an accident, and suspicion fades.