Setting
A Separate Peace is set in fictional Devon, New England at the Devon school. The school is completely based on Phillips Exeter Academy, a preparatory school that author John Knowles attended. Many buildings in the town are built of red brick and are covered in ivy. Gigantic old elms surround the school. The Devon School prepares its students for war as the book is set in 1942, the third year of World War II. Two rivers run through Devon: the Devon River and Naguamsett River. The Devon River is described as being very clean and clear while the Naguamsett River is dirty and salty.
"I walked along Gilman Street, the best street in town. The houses were as handsome and unusual as I remembered. Clever modernizations of old colonial manses, extensions in Victorian wood, capacious Greek Revival temples lined the street, as impressive and just as forbidding as ever... Today with their failing ivy and stripped, moaning trees the houses looked both more elegant and more lifeless than ever." -Gene describing Devon
"I walked along Gilman Street, the best street in town. The houses were as handsome and unusual as I remembered. Clever modernizations of old colonial manses, extensions in Victorian wood, capacious Greek Revival temples lined the street, as impressive and just as forbidding as ever... Today with their failing ivy and stripped, moaning trees the houses looked both more elegant and more lifeless than ever." -Gene describing Devon