The Go-Between The Go-Between The Go-Between is a novel by L. P. Hartley published in 1953. His best-known work, it has been adapted several times for stage and screen. The book gives a critical view of society at the end of the Victorian era through the eyes of a naïve schoolboy outsider. In the book’s prologue, Leo Colston chances upon a diary from 1900, the year of his thirteenth birthday, and gradually pieces together a memory that he has suppressed. Under its influence, and from the viewpoint of what he has become by the midpoint of "this hideous century", Leo relives the
The Go-Between Leo naively believes that Marian’s engagement ought to bring the correspondence between her and Ted to an end. Feeling increasingly uncomfortable about the general atmosphere of deception and risk, Leo tries to end his role as go-between but comes under great psychological pressure and is forced to continue. Ultimately, his unwilling involvement has disastrous consequences when Marian’s mother makes him accompany her as she tracks the lovers down to their hiding place and discovers them having sex. The trauma which results leads directly to Ted's suicide and Leo's nervous collapse. In the epilogue, the older Leo sums up how profoundly