Tom Brown's School Days (1857) is a novel by Thomas Hughes. The story is set at Rugby School, a public school for boys, in the 1830s; Hughes attended Rugby School from 1834 to 1842. The novel has been the source for several film and television adaptations in the 20th century. Thomas Hughes (20 October 1822 - 22 March 1896) was an English lawyer and author. He is most famous for his novel Tom Brown's School Days, a semi-autobiographical work set at Rugby School, which Hughes had attended. It had a lesser-known sequel, Tom Brown at Oxford (1861).