As the headmaster, John Greeve's 30 years of life at The Wells School have been rich, challenging, and full of meaning, but now his precisely ordered world is crumbling. The values he so passionately believes in are being threatened by forces he cannot accept, putting him at a crossroads to fight for the decency of his school, the survival of his family, and, ultimately, his very life. This new edition includes a foreword by the author and an afterword in which he presents and comments on some of the nearly 1,000 letters he has received since the original publication of this classic novel.