John le Carré wrote A Murder of Quality in 1962, the year before he wrote The Spy Who Came in from the Cold. The former introduces George Smiley being a detective after a murder at a famous English public school.
The opening paragraph is worthy of Trollope.
The greatness of Carne School has been ascribed by common consent to Edward VI, whose educational zeal is ascribed by history to the Duke of Somerset. But Carne prefers the respectability of the monarch to the questionable politics of his adviser, drawing strength from the conviction that Great Schools, like Tudor Kings, were ordained in Heaven.
You will recall that le Carré taught French and German at Eton for two years (1956 – 1958) and lest there be any suggestion that Carne might be based on Eton he insures himself in the Foreward.
There are probably a dozen great schools of whom it will be confidently asserted that Carne is their deliberate image. But hewho looks among their common rooms for the D’Arcys, Fieldings, and Hecht will search in vain.
If you intend to read le Carré ‘s first novel stop reading as there’s a spoiler ahead. Kenneth Rose read it and made this entry in his Journals.
7 March 1965
Read John le Carré ‘s A Murder of Quality. It is a very thinly disguised book on Eton where he taught for a while and was most unhappy. In fact he has conceived a Gissing-like hatred for the place. There are devastatingly cruel portraits of Oliver van Oss (the murderer) and of Hubert and Grizel Hartley.
Kenneth also taught briefly at Eton after the war and remained life-long friends with Hubert Hartley and his wife Grizel. Although Kenneth had been to Repton he maintained close links with Eton, eventually being made an honorary Old Etonian – a distinction he shared with the Queen Mother. Oliver van Oss was Lower Master and Acting Head Master at Eton before being appointed Headmaster of Charterhouse (1965 – 1973).