Harriet Martineau 
The Crofton Boys (Barnes & Noble Digital Library) 

This 1841 novel describes life at a nineteenth-century English boarding school.  The hero, Hugh Proctor, comes to the school from a relatively privileged background and suffers there a disfiguring accident that will prove to be the defining challenge of his life.

About the author

Harriet Martineau (1802-1876) was an English novelist and sociologist, an innovator who broadened social analysis to include such nontraditional concerns as the roles of women, children, and minorities.  She is best known for her
Illustrations of Political Economy series and the novel
Deerbrook (1839).