Truly deserving of the accolade Modern Classic, Donna Tartt's novel is a remarkable achievement – both compelling and elegant, dramatic and playful. Under the influence of their charismatic classics professor, a group of clever, eccentric misfits at an elite New England college discover a way of thinking and living that is a world away from the humdrum existence of their contemporaries. But when they go beyond the boundaries of normal morality their lives are changed profoundly and for ever.

Author

Donna Tartt (born 1963, Greenwood, Mississippi) is an American writer.  She studied at the University of Mississippi, where her writing caught the attention of an Author Willie Morris already during the freshman year. She was recommended and admitted to a graduate course on short story at the age of 18. At the age of 19, she started writing her first novel. The Secret History was published in 1992.  She is is the author of the novels The Little Friend (2002), and The Goldfinch (2013). Tartt has largely written in neo-romanticism -inflected prose that borrows heavily from the stylings of nineteenth-century literature. A number of recurring literary themes occur in Tartt's novels, including those related to social class and social stratification, guilt, and aesthetic beauty.

Donna Tartt, Wikipedia (en)

Donna Tartt at BBC Radio 4 – Bookclub interviewed by James Naughtie (January 5, 2014, 28 min.)