A Separate Peace

The narrative draws heavily from the author's own time at Phillips Exeter Academy, including the existence of a real club that required members to jump from a high tree into a river. While the setting and certain incidents mirror his personal history, the author maintained that the intense feelings of envy and conflict between the characters were fictional inventions.

A feature film adaptation directed by Larry Peerce was released in 1972, followed by a television movie directed by Peter Yates in 2003.

The novel was developed from a short story titled Phineas, which the author published in Cosmopolitan magazine in 1956.