The Weirdness of Girls' School Stories: Part One
Posted 11 April 2009 in Books by Catriona
Continuing the Random Weirdness from Girls’ School Stories weekend on the Circulating Library.
These ones aren’t even mildly suggestive, like the last set. They’re just out-and-out odd, which is, frankly, how I like my school stories.
This one’s from St Margaret’s Trials and Triumphs, the last in Helen S. Humphries’s mildly religious school series.
Well, I say “mildly religious,” but the first book, Margaret the Rebel, is advertised on the back of this one with the following blurb:
Margaret Vincent had been the spoiled darling of her widowed mother. Consequently, when her mother marries again Margaret is furious and hates everything connected with her stepfather. At school Margaret is against everyone, but, fortunately, she has an understanding headmistress and form-mistress, and through them she is led to the Savior.
So “mildly” might have been understating it. They’re less religious than the Glendorran series, though, in which Wendy copes with a school whose inhabitants are such heathens that they smoke out of the dormitory windows. And no, I’m not joking about that.
So, St Margaret’s Trials and Triumphs:
Doesn’t seem that weird, you say? What I love is that the girl didn’t bother to remove her blazer before she leapt into the pond. Sure, a small child’s life was in danger, but, honestly, where’s the pride in the uniform? When Elizabeth did the same thing in The Naughtiest Girl Is A Monitor, she took off her blazer and her shoes and stockings, which is how the child’s wealthy father didn’t know who the rescuer was.
And, yes, I can just recite plot points from Enid Blyton novels off the top of my head. It’s a gift.
Methinks the St Margaret’s girl here wants some school branding prominently visible in the inevitable newspaper photographs.
Of course, it’s less disturbing than this illustration from Susan Ann Rice’s Form 2A At Larkhill:
Yes, she has stitched her finger to whatever garment she’s making in Home Economics. And, yes, this is the frontispiece to the book—of all the available scenes, the editors thought this was the one that best illustrated the book.
I’m assuming it takes place in chapter three, “Excitement in the Needlework Room,” but it gives me a poor impression of Larkhill in general and its Home Economics teachers in particular.
Pamela Hinkson’s Patsey At School is a different case altogether:
This is a school story, it’s just a school story masquerading as an early Edwardian melodrama. This could be easily captioned “Dead, and never called me mother!” or “Freedom I can promise myself, for who can chain or imprison the soul?”
The fact that it’s actually captioned “It was awfully wicked of you to do it, of course” doesn’t really clear up the confusion.
And I have absolutely no idea what’s happening in the cover to Elizabeth Tarrant’s Crisis At Cardinal:
I presume the crisis is that the students are being menaced by grotesquely oversized jewelry that when you look at it closely appears to be looking back at you.
It doesn’t help that, while I think the girl is looking back at the trio of girls on the right-hand side of the cover, it looks as though she’s thinking, “Damn! Is that brooch still following me?”
Share your thoughts [24]
1
Matthew Smith wrote at Apr 12, 10:59 am
You really are gifted! And I’d be on the lookout for that brooch too – it looks like it means business.
2
Catriona wrote at Apr 12, 12:31 pm
Aw, bless. Sadly, no particular gift is needed to own a seriously high number of really odd books.
(The brooch is disturbing, isn’t it? I think it’s the fierce eyes.)
3
Tim wrote at Apr 14, 05:25 am
Crisis at Cardinal was, if I remember, an attempt at a second Buffy spinoff in which Willow falls through a hole in time and ends up in a 1950s English boarding school. The pilot involved the Cursed Brooch of Minnegon. The network didn’t pick the show up, but some of the promotional material, like the poster shown above, can be found online.
4
Catriona wrote at Apr 14, 05:46 am
And how do you fit Elizabeth Tarrant into your otherwise ingenious solution?
(Although, I haven’t actually read Crisis At Cardinal, so every word you speak could be truth.)
5
Tim wrote at Apr 14, 06:01 am
Elizabeth Tarrant is Joss Whedon’s Alan Smithee.
6
Catriona wrote at Apr 14, 06:19 am
Well, you would want to use a pseudonym on a project like that, wouldn’t you?
7
Wendy wrote at Apr 14, 08:22 am
I;m wondering if you have a school story called Fourteen Fourteens. About a woman who sets up a kind of school for fourteen girls chosen because they are all named MArgaret. I no longer have a copy…it was quite old? i can’t remember the reason why…
8
Catriona wrote at Apr 14, 08:56 am
This one?
I don’t have a copy of it, sadly. But 1928 would make it right in the forefront of girls’ school stories: I know the first one, technically, is a Sarah Fielding novel from 1749, but the form didn’t really take off until the early nineteenth century.
The problem is that I don’t collect scientifically: I just buy the ones that I find. This one looks fascinating, though-and there are some fairly inexpensive copies around. I might have to pick it up.
9
Wendy wrote at Apr 14, 11:35 am
yes that’s the one. I think it must have belonged to my grandmother going by that year. I do remember it freaking me out slightly…which must be something to do with the ghost mentioned in the summary on the link.
Most interesting was the 14 nicknames they came up for Margaret. My memory of it is annoyingly vague though.
10
Catriona wrote at Apr 14, 11:58 am
I can’t think of fourteen nicknames for Margaret!
Let’s see: Gretchen is German for Margaret; Daisy is (for reasons unknown) a common nickname for Margaret; Meg; Marge—nope, can’t think of more than four.
I hope they were allowed to use surnames, or if might have become terribly complicated.
11
Tim wrote at Apr 14, 01:29 pm
Marg, Mag, Mags, Magsy, Megsy, Gar, Gret, Ret, Retta, Gretta.
Though they might have been nicknames like Clever, Posh, Scary, Sporty and Ginger. Or Teacher’s Pet, Book Monitor, Wants-to-be-Head-Girl, Four-Eyes, No-Friends, Gypsy etc.
12
Catriona wrote at Apr 14, 09:34 pm
I’m thinking you’re right, Tim: they’d have to be based on physical appearance, hobbies, predilections—something like that.
Mags is a good one: I didn’t think of that. I did think of “Ret,” but I used to know someone called Ret based on an entirely different name, so I talked myself into the belief that it was an inappropriate nickname for a Margaret.
13
Drew wrote at Apr 14, 11:18 pm
“The advertisement read: “A first class education at school is offered free to girl of fourteen named Margaret.”
Now that’s a system of equitable education for all that I can get behind.
14
Catriona wrote at Apr 14, 11:30 pm
Also, there’s a ghost! Who said girls’ school stories are formulaic and predictable?
15
Wendy wrote at Apr 15, 06:28 am
and i do remember they had to draw straws (or something…rock, paper, scissors maybe) for who would actually get to be called “Margaret”…so really only 13 nicknames required. Strangely, I don’t remember any of Tim’s suggestions…but it was a long time ago.
16
Wendy wrote at Apr 15, 06:32 am
and not to spoil it for anyone (although I’m sure you’re scouring second hand bookshops right now) but I think the ghost turned out not be a ghost after all. Who’d a thunk it? Something about a hidden invalid girl named Margaret comes to mind…or maybe it was a ghost…and the original Margaret had died…one of those…or something else…either way it scared my 10 year old self and I didn’t read it very often.
17
Catriona wrote at Apr 15, 06:42 am
So is the ghost a ghost or not a ghost? Now I am going to have to find it and read it!
Sadly, in girls’ school stories with ghosts, the ghosts rarely turn out to actually be ghosts. That’s why I keep meaning to buy that series of books where the girl is sent to a school staffed by dead famous writers.
I really must get around to buying those at some point.
18
Wendy wrote at Apr 15, 10:22 am
I can’t remember and I’m really wishing I hadn’t given it to Lifeline some years ago!
a school staffed by dead famous writers..that sounds good
19
Catriona wrote at Apr 15, 10:36 am
I just want them for their titles: Wuthering High, The Scarlet Letterman, and Moby Clique.
Here’s Wuthering High.
I mentioned them on the blog ages and ages ago, and then have never bought them. I really must get around to that.
20
Robina Fox wrote at Aug 24, 08:23 pm
I remember Fourteen Fourteens quite well. I’m fairly sure of the names: Margaret, Maggie, Marge, Meg, Megan, Megsy, Peggy, Pegeen, Greta, Rita, Daisy, Marguerite, Marjorie, and… Peg? The different names were the idea of the girls themselves, and were chosen by lot, though the Irish girl successfully reclaimed “Pegeen”. “Margaret” was, of course, picked by the heroine of the book.
The small school, in a large house in which they all had beautifully decorated rooms, was a memorial to a girl called Margaret who had died when she was fourteen. The ‘ghost’ was her sad mother.
A lovely book.
21
Catriona wrote at Aug 24, 08:37 pm
Welcome to the blog, Robina! Now I’m wondering why none of us thought of either “Marguerite” or “Greta” when we were rummaging for Margaret-synonyms. I still haven’t tracked this book down, and I really must: it seems to leave fond memories behind.
22
Gillian wrote at Feb 27, 06:53 am
I also remember reading this bok when a child…and now you have reminded me of parts of the story I had forgotten…Gee…wish I could remember more of the stroy…can’t remember where my copy went…sad!
23
Vivienne wrote at Jan 8, 07:32 am
Belatedly joining this discussion after wondering what happened to my mother’s copy of Fourteen Fourteens, which I read about 20 years ago. She had received the book when she turned 14 back in 1950s.
I really enjoyed the story but I can’t even remember the ghost. I really only remember them choosing the different names for themselves.
Hoping to find our copy – or a copy somewhere – to pass on to my own daughter.
24
Val wrote at May 10, 05:30 am
Pearl was also one of Fourteen Fourteens. I loved that they all had different coloured rooms. The heroine’s original room was shades of orange, but she swapped with another girl whose room was green, and who didn’t like it.