Although the book is unabashedly sentimental, it depicts the sweeping social changes that Chips experiences throughout his life: he begins his tenure at Brookfield in September 1870, at the age of 22, as the Franco-Prussian War is breaking out; he dies in November 1933, at the age of 85. To a modern reader, the fact that this is shortly after Adolf Hitler's rise to power frames the story significantly, but with added poignancy. Neither the author nor the readers of those early editions were aware of the devastation that Hitler would bring to Europe in a few years.