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‘Well—are girls like boys, then?’:genre and the gender divide inschool storiesPenelope Fleming-fidoa Canterbury ChristChurch University College , NorthHolmes Road, Canterbury, Kent, CT1 1QU, UK E-mail:Published online: 16 Aug 2006.

To cite this article: Penelope Fleming-fido (2004) ‘Well—are girls like boys, then?’:genre and the gender divide in school stories, New Review of Children's Literature andLibrarianship, 10:1, 79-89, DOI: 10.1080/1361454042000294122

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‘WELL*/ARE GIRLS LIKE BOYS, THEN?’:

GENRE AND THE GENDER DIVIDE IN

SCHOOL STORIES

Penelope Fleming-Fido

This paper addresses the issue of genre and gender in twentieth-century British school

stories, exploring whether the sex of the characters is of itself divisive enough to make

girls’ school stories and boys’ school stories separate genres. The similarities as well as

the differences are addressed, and the paper looks at whether the sex of the characters

is the sole obvious difference between the stories, and if so, whether this is a large

enough difference in and of itself to make girls’ and boys’ school stories parts of

separate genres. It addresses the arguments of previous critics, as well as taking into

account mixed-sex school series and their unique place in the world of school stories.

This paper looks in particular at the following school story series: the Chalet School

series by Elinor M. Brent-Dyer; the Dimsie series by Dorita Fairlie Bruce; the Billy Bunter

series by Frank Richards; the Malory Towers series by Enid Blyton; the Jennings series

by Anthony Buckeridge; the Naughtiest Girl series by Enid Blyton; the Trebizon series by

Anne Digby; and the Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling.

‘Well �/ are girls like boys, then?’ asked Tom.

‘Very much so in some ways.’ Matron sat down, and looked at Tom. (Brent-Dyer

1987b, 43)

Tom Gay’s question lies at the heart of this paper. Tom*/biologically female, but

brought up as a boy*/is trying to come to terms with what she has always

believed are the irreconcilable differences between boys and girls, only to find

that these differences are not always as clear cut as she thought. But, when it

comes to literature, is there a real split between girls’ school stories and boys’

school stories?

The majority of school story critics have felt that there is. Rosemary

Auchmuty, in the Preface to the Encyclopaedia of Boys School Stories , argues that

although ‘Girls’ and boys’ school stories . . . share some common characteristics

. . . there is much more about them that is different’ (Auchmuty and Wotton 2000

[both volumes], viii); and critics have tended to focus either on boys’ school

stories*/in the case of writers such as P.W. Musgrave, Isobel Quigley and Jeffrey

Richards*/or on those about girls, with Auchmuty herself, Mary Cadogan and Ju

Gosling concentrating their attention there.

Does it actually matter whether there is such a split or not, though? Why

should it matter whether there is a genre, or a subgenre, of ‘school stories’? It

matters because it is useful to compare like with like. Littlefair suggests that

‘authors who have similar purposes produce a particular genre of writing’

New Review of Children’s Literature and Librarianship, Vol. 10, No. 1, 2004ISSN 1361-4541 print/1740-7885 online/04/010079�/11

# 2004 Taylor & Francis Ltd DOI: 10.1080/1361454042000294122

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(1991, 3). Therefore, comparisons and contrasts between books in the same

genre can often be particularly pertinent. So, the question is: did the writers of

twentieth-century girls’ school stories and boys’ school stories have a similar

purpose? Are the qualities that they share more important than those in which

they differ?

Musgrave defines the characteristics of boys’ school stories as fourfold: ‘the

plot is seen from the boys’ point of view; the school is seen as an organisation;

the character of the hero or heroes develops during the story; and, last, there is a

morally didactic element in the story’ (1985, 130).

This is a very useful definition, but one that would in many ways fit the

majority of twentieth-century school stories, providing we broaden point one to

saying that the plot is seen from the point of view of the pupils , rather than

limiting it to boys. Auchmuty argues, however, that this is not enough to class

both girls’ and boys’ school stories as the same genre, saying that ‘though the

books share some plots and values, they tend to treat them quite differently’

(Auchmuty and Wotton 2000 [both volumes], viii). Therefore, it is worth going

through Musgrave’s characteristics one by one, to see first whether they apply to

both girls’ and boys’ school stories*/not to mention the regularly ignored

category of mixed-sex school stories*/and then to query whether Auchmuty is

correct in saying that when they are applicable to both boys’, girls’ and mixed-sex

stories, the differences in approach still maintain their separateness from each

other.

That the plot is seen from the children’s point of view is not, of course,

surprising in books written for a child reader: the majority of books for children

have a young protagonist through whom the narrated adventures are shown.

Although in school stories the narrator is often the adult author, the plot is mostly

focused on the child character(s), and insight is given into the thought processes

of the children.

In school stories, it is often the case that the title of the book names the

protagonist. Examples of this in boys’ school series include the Jennings series,

with titles such as The Trouble with Jennings (Buckeridge 1972), and the Billy

Bunter series, which starts with the protagonist’s name and then a summary of

the main detail of the plot (for example, Billy Bunter and the School Rebellion ;

Richards 1968); and in girls’ series, the Dimsie books, which start with Dimsie Goes

to School (Bruce 1949) and end with Dimsie Carries On . The first book in the

Dimsie series was, in fact, originally called The Senior Prefect , after another

character in that particular book, but its name was changed on subsequent

impressions to be consistent with the remainder of the series. Equally, in the most

recent example of a popular (if in some ways alternative) mixed-sex school series,

the Harry Potter books all bear the main character’s name in their title, while the

earlier Enid Blyton mixed-sex series named the (in this case, female) protagonist’s

name by character definition in The Naughtiest Girl in the School and its sequels.

In other school series, it is the school rather than the protagonist that is

named in the title, such as in Enid Blyton’s Malory Towers, Anne Digby’s Trebizon

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and Elinor Brent-Dyer’s Chalet School series*/which, of course, ties in with

Musgrave’s second characteristic: that the school should be seen as an

organisation. Although occasionally other series do use both these conventions,

it is only in school series (no matter what the gender of the children) that to give

books titles in the fashion of one or the other is almost a prerequisite.

Elinor Brent-Dyer’s Chalet School stories are, in fact, the only ones that

occasionally deviate from Musgrave’s idea that the plot should be seen from the

child’s point of view. While the majority of her books fit this, the early books in

the series occasionally change from young Joey Bettany’s viewpoint to that of her

grown-up sister Madge (who is also the headmistress of the Chalet School); and a

later book, The New Mistress of the Chalet School (Brent-Dyer 1983), is written

exclusively from the point of view of a young teacher who, while at 22 is not

exactly old, is certainly not a child. These are, however, the exceptions to the rule

in a series that runs to 62 books in paperback.1

The schools in all of the books, whether named in the titles or not, are easily

recognisable and describable institutions. Any reader of these stories could name

the schools: Billy Bunter goes to Greyfriars, Harry Potter to Hogwarts. And, indeed,

the reader could go on to give a description of the schools, which are all

surprisingly similar. Many of the schools*/from the earliest series, Dimsie, to the

latest, Harry Potter*/share characteristics. The schools themselves are usually in a

building that is memorable, either for their looks or for certain characteristics (e.g.

the placing in the country) that define them. Likewise, the running of each school

demonstrates many similarities. The prefect system, for example, is always in

existence, although it is mentioned rarely in the Jennings books, and termed the

‘monitor system’ in the Naughtiest Girl books. Equally, in all the series discussed

in this article, either the Head of the school or a senior teacher fills the role of the

(virtually) omnipotent adult, a concept in school stories from at least the time of

Tom Brown’s School Days (Hughes 1905) and Dr Arnold. Contrary to Auchmuty’s

suggestion, these conventions are not treated differently in girls’ and boys’

school stories: they seem merely to be part of the accepted background of all

school stories.

The third part of Musgrave’s definition is that the character of the hero of

school stories develops during the story. This, in fact, is the characteristic that it is

most difficult to defend in some of the series discussed here. Interestingly,

despite Musgrave coming to this conclusion when looking solely at books set in

boys’ schools, it is in two of the boys’ school series that this could be seen to be

most in dispute, while this definition holds true for the majority of the girls’

school stories and for the mixed-sex school stories. There is, in fact, some support

for Auchmuty’s argument that values*/in this case, the value of learning from

experience and developing a stronger, better or different character through

those experiences*/are treated differently in twentieth-century boys’ school

stories and girls’ school stories.

In the majority of school stories, the characters age both throughout the

books and throughout the series: some series follow a character through school

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from his/her first year to the last; others, like the Chalet School books, go further

than that, with the main character in the series starting as a 12 year old and

ending as the mother of the Head Girl of the school. With the physical aging of

the characters comes mental and moral development. However, the characters in

both the Jennings books and the Billy Bunter books do not grow older, so there is

not such an obvious path for character development.

I would, however, argue that there are signs of character development in

both the Jennings and Bunter stories, but, unusually in series, this development is

not carried over from one book in the series to the next. For example, in Billy

Bunter of Greyfriars School , Richards begins by writing that:

[t]here were many things at which Bunter was not good. He was not good at

games. He was not good in class. He was not good even at such simple, easy

things as telling the truth. (1991, 3)

Bunter at this point does not sound like a character with any great moral worth,

yet by the end of the book it seems that Bunter has learnt something of these

values, and that in a time of crisis, which is so often when character development

is shown to take place in school stories, Bunter finds some moral worth inside

him. For at the end of Billy Bunter of Greyfriars School Bunter is shown in a

different light, saving his form master, for whom he had no love, from the

attentions of a footpad. The author, Frank Richards, comments that ‘Perhaps,

somewhere under Billy Bunter’s layers of fat, there was a spot of pluck*/genuine

old British pluck!’ (1991, 222). Therefore Bunter’s character is without doubt

developed during this book, but if a reader went to any other in the series, the

fat, untruthful, lazy Bunter would reappear at the beginning of them, as if this

other one had never been.

Part of this is down to the fact that, unlike the majority of school series, in

which the books were written to be read in a particular chronological order, both

the Bunter and Jennings books (apart from Jennings Goes to School [Buckeridge

1966], which was written to be the very first book of that series) can be read in

any order; therefore, it is difficult for long-term character development to happen

over the series.

Is there a morally didactic element to all of these stories, no matter what

the sex of the characters? I would certainly argue that there is. It is impossible not

to get an idea of the sort of values espoused by the authors; and in many cases

these are made explicit. Honour is a central concept in both boys’ and girls’

school stories. Honourable behaviour includes not telling lies, doing the best you

can in any situation, not making a fuss when bad things happen, and showing

bravery in adversity. Sue Simms, in the ‘Introduction’ to The Encyclopaedia of Girls’

School Stories , acknowledges that:

there is no doubt that the boys got there first: ‘honour’ first appears in a boys

school story title in 186 (Schoolboy Honour. A Tale of Halminster College by Rev.

H.C. Adams . . .), and the girls only arrived on the scene nearly 40 years later in

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1902, with On Honour (Ellinor Davenport Adams) . . . Girls were very aware of

this, and spent many books proving that girls could be just as ‘honourable’ as

boys. (2000, 10)

This is shown throughout the series examined, and the approach is similar in

both boys’ and girls’ school stories. Perhaps the difference, if there is one, is that

the morals are often made more explicit in girls’ school stories than they are in

boys’ school stories. This is true of the two boys’ series under discussion here,

which work in many ways on a humorous level.

Billy Bunter is criticised by his form-mates, and through them by his author,

for being ‘a lazy toad, and a slacking fat frog, and a prevaricating porker’ (Richards

1991, 192). It is made clear to the reader that Bunter is not honourable; and he

regularly gets his come-uppance, through being caned by his teacher, Mr Quelch,

or through rough justice delivered by other members of his form. On the occasions

when his behaviour is admirable, however, as in the example mentioned earlier

where he saves Mr Quelch from harm, his good behaviour is rewarded.

Jennings is described by his author Anthony Buckeridge in Jennings of

Course! as a boy who ‘had about him the eager air of one who acts first and

thinks afterwards. Though full of good intentions, his well-sprung plans were apt

to recoil and his shafts of inspiration to fall wide of their target’ (1991, 6). It is the

unfailing good intentions of Jennings that lead to each book ending happily; but

when Jennings breaks the school rules, he is inevitably caught, or punished in

some other way. David Bathurst has argued that part of the appeal of the

Jennings stories lies in ‘the absence of any stern moral, religious or authoritarian

principles’ (2000, 64). However, he does not say that there are not any moral

principles, but that they are not stern. Buckeridge has a light and amusing writing

style*/‘in the tradition of P.G. Wodehouse’ says Bathurst (2000, 64); and it is

difficult to disagree*/which means that while the morality is quite clear in his

stories, it is anything but stern.

The girls, no less, have their honour, and it is always rewarded. Enid Blyton,

who wrote the Malory Towers series, said of her stories that:

[M]y public, bless them, feel in my books a sense of security, an anchor, a sure

knowledge that right is right, and that such things as courage and kindness

deserve to be emulated. Naturally the morals or ethics are intrinsic to the

story*/and therein lies their true power. (quoted in Gosling 2004)

On a similar note, Frank Richards wrote that ‘A writer for young people should

still endeavour to give his young readers a sense of stability and solid security,

because it is good for them and makes for their happiness and peace of mind’

(quoted in Musgrave 1985, 225). The similar purpose of these writers is made

clear in their statements, which gives strength to the idea that they are writing

books within the same genre.

On the whole, not only are the good children rewarded, but the bad or

naughty are given a chance to repent and become worthy members of the

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school. Problem children are reformed, simply by being members of the school

and imbibing the atmosphere. This is often made explicit, as in A Problem For the

Chalet School , whose final sentence reads:

It had been a difficult problem for everyone, but it was solved at last, and the

school had two more people in it who would some day go out into the world

and make it just that much happier and better because of the Chalet School

way of thinking and doing. (Brent-Dyer 1982, 158)

This quotation, in fact, does highlight the major difference between the way

boys’ school series studied in this article and the girls’ school stories here explore

moral issues. Neither Jennings nor Bunter books would have the moral pointed

out so explicitly. However, to see this as a particular gap between boys’ and girls’

school stories in general would be inaccurate: earlier boys’ school stories such as

Eric, or Little By Little (Farrer 1858), worked in precisely this way, with the morals

even more pointed than in the earlier example.

Other similarities between girls’ and boys’ school stories include a taste for

adventure. Perhaps surprisingly, the girls’ adventures are no less dangerous or

exciting than those of the boys. Just as Jennings and Darbishire rescue the school

sports cup from a thief in Jennings Follows A Clue (Buckeridge 1967), in Dimsie

Moves Up Again (Bruce 1983) Dimsie and Pamela hijack a car in order to rescue a

precious painting that has been stolen by American thieves.

There is no arguing, however, that there are some differences between

girls’ school stories and boys’ school stories; and equally that many of these

differences can be explained in terms of gender issues. It is whether these

differences are important enough to divide the books into two categories simply

in terms of the sex of the characters that is questionable.

First, boys’ school stories, since the publication of Tom Brown’s School Days

in 1857, have excluded women to a large degree. While before the emergence of

this novel women were, on the whole, more likely to write every sort of story for

children, after its publication women became somewhat excluded from the world

of boys’ school stories*/not only as authors, but also as characters within the

books. When they do appear, women are marginalised: in Jennings there is a

female matron, but no sign of a female teacher, or any hint that they might

exist*/even though they were certainly not unheard of at the time the first

Jennings book was written in the 1940s, let alone in the 1990s when the last

appeared. In the Billy Bunter books, there is barely a mention of women at all.

(There was a Bessie Bunter series published in a girls’ magazine at the same time

that Billy appeared in the Magnet magazine. However, the feminine version was

never published in book form, and Bessie’s existence was rarely if ever mentioned

in the Billy Bunter books, although he was mentioned regularly in her magazine

stories.)

Not only do girls’ school stories take the opposite approach, portraying

powerful female characters, they also do not exclude male characters in the same

fashion, with male teachers (or masters, in the terminology of the majority of

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such stories) appearing regularly*/although, interestingly, generally associated

with the arts side of the curriculum rather than the science side, which is taught

by women. There are also other male characters that often appear in the stories,

although it is noticeable that they are generally defined by their relationship with

the students or teachers at the school. Thus Jack Maynard, in the early Chalet

School books, is described as the ‘brother of a former mistress in the school’

(Brent-Dyer 1987a, 86). When he marries Joey Bettany, he is then primarily known

as her husband, and the father of the (female) Maynard triplets. Likewise, a male

character in Dimsie, Head Girl , is described in the following fashion: ‘This is Jim

Hughes, Alma*/Pam’s brother’ (Bruce 1947, 198). The point of reference is almost

always found by their relationship to someone in the school.

Second, in twentieth-century boys’ school stories, being intelligent, let

alone academic, is less important than shining on the games field; and good

sportsmanship is almost invariably linked to having a well-developed sense of

honour. Isobel Quigley, in The Heirs of Tom Brown , describes school sports as ‘the

central ritual occasion’ of school stories as a whole, adding that ‘over and over

again the almost mystical meaning attached to games*/certainly to their moral

worth and purpose*/is made clear’’ (1982, 89). Natural ability is often linked to

good sportsmanship, which is a morally worthy quality. Although Darbishire, in

the Jennings books, manages to be bad at sport but is shown to have a sense of

morality, there is no doubt that he is looked down upon by many of his peers for

his lack of sporting talent: Jennings comments in Jennings Goes to School , ‘You

ought to take some interest in football, Darbishire. Everyone’ll think you’re the

most radio-active sissy if you don’t’ (Buckeridge 1966, 71).

Contrary to this, in girls’ school stories it is personal qualities that are

regarded as most important. Although being good at sport is seen as a positive

thing, it is by no means the most important. Even intelligence takes second place

to being a virtuous woman, something explicitly said in many of the books. In the

first of the Malory Towers series, the Headmistress, Miss Grayling, says to her new

first-year students that:

I do not count as our successes those who have won scholarships and passed

exams, though these are good things to do. I count as our successes those who

learn to be good-hearted and kind, sensible and trustable, good, sound women

the world can lean on . . . (Blyton 1982, 25)

Not only are personal qualities most important, it is traditionally feminine

qualities that are to be looked for. Another Headmistress, this time in the Dimsie

series, makes this clear*/and also the reason why: ‘you’re girls, and you’ll grow in

time into the women whom men marry, and on whom they will depend for the

happiness of their homes’ (Bruce 1949, 42).

Linked to this second point, in girls’ school stories there is often a

‘nurturing’ element that means that they tend to look out for, and care for, the

younger girls. In the Trebizon books, the sixth-former Pippa Fellowes-Walker

helps second-year Rebecca with her mathematics, and fills the role of mentor to

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Rebecca throughout the first few books. In return, Rebecca looks up to her and

admires her. Equally, in the Dimsie series, Dimsie herself is mentor to a younger

girl called Hilary, to the extent that the author, Dorita Fairlie Bruce, writes in

Dimsie, Head Girl that ‘Dimsie’s word was law in the Lower School, and nobody

dreamed of resenting any order of hers, least of all Hilary Garth . . . [H]er devotion

to the elder girl was almost dog-like’ (1947, 21).

It is not usual for an older boy in a twentieth-century school story to have

such a close and empathetic relationship with a younger one: the younger boys

in the Jennings books, Binns Minor and Blotwell, have no such relationship with

their elders, but are mostly treated with amiable contempt. It seems, therefore,

that girls are shown as being more naturally caring than boys are. This reflects

gender attitudes for much of the twentieth century, where the majority of care

givers, paid and especially unpaid, have been female.

Finally, there is little sense of family in twentieth-century boys’ school

stories, although in the earlier school stories this was not so true. It would seem

that families are left behind, in the same way that women are left out, when a boy

starts school. Contrarily, in girls’ school stories, the family is never forgotten. In

girls’ school stories, family matters . Thus plots in girls’ school stories can be

wholly based around family relationships; for example, in Second Term at Trebizon

(Digby 1988), the main intrigue is about the peculiar behaviour of Tish Anderson,

whose attitude turns out to be based on what she knows about the family

finances of one of her best friends, Sue Mason. Likewise, in Dimsie Goes to School

(Bruce 1949), confusion between Daphne Maitland, Senior Prefect, and Dimsie

Maitland (whose first name is also Daphne, but is known as Dimsie due to her

initials spelling D.I.M.) is an ongoing plot theme, linked to a mystery about

Dimsie’s mother. This perhaps is understandable given that, for many centuries,

and well into the twentieth century, a girl would be expected to have a close

relationship with her family and, indeed, to live with them after she left school

unless she got married. Boys, conversely, from the time they were sent away to

boarding school would spend comparatively little time with their families.

There are differences then, and these differences seem to be based

predominantly on the gender of the characters. There was a difference in the way

girls and boys were brought up throughout the twentieth century, and these

differences have been reflected in the books. To some extent, these differences

explain why previous critics have tended to classify boys’ and girls’ school stories

separately: however, to do so leaves mixed-sex school stories on the sidelines

entirely, without a place in either genre. Likewise, it ignores the very strong

similarities between the books, similarities that include an equal degree of

honourable behaviour expected in both boys and girls, a sense of development

of the characters in the books, very similarly set up schools, a taste for adventure

and an emphasis on morals and morality. The books also share the common

purpose of showing children what the authors see as appropriate behaviour

patterns: that these differ in some ways for boys and girls is perhaps not as

surprising as the amount in which they do not differ. Despite the fact that, as

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Auchmuty says, ‘femininity and masculinity are constructed so differently in our

society’ (Auchmuty and Wotton 2000 [both volumes], viii), it seems that as far as

school stories are concerned, both genders are expected to act in similar

(although admittedly not identical) ways.

I would suggest that there are other reasons why boys’ and girls’ school

stories have been separated in the minds of the critics, however. As Kimberley

Reynolds points out, ‘most fiction specifically written for and read by girls was

categorised as low’ (1990, xviii). This is a gendered belief by critics that has not

taken account of the books themselves, and is a belief shown by some boys’

school story critics. Isobel Quigley, for example, claims that ‘Like every other form

of fiction, girls’ school stories have a sociological interest, telling us a great deal

about their time and its attitudes; but it is very hard to consider them as more

than (occasionally charming) kitsch’ (1982, 212). Quigley is predominantly an

expert in the boys’ school story, and her views on girls’ school stories are certainly

not universally accepted by critics: although Auchmuty agrees that ‘all school

stories are not alike and all are not of equal worth’, she also adds that ‘some

school stories are really good’ (Auchmuty and Wotton 2000 [both volumes],

vii/viii); a comment certainly not solely directed at boys’ stories.

Girls’ school story critics, meanwhile, have often looked at the stories from a

feminist point of view, arguing that ‘schoolgirl stories gave girls their heroines,

and in a patriarchal society, a rare vision of a women-only world’ (Auchmuty 1992,

14�/15); or that ‘the stories . . . expanded girls’ educational and career horizons,

and*/occasionally and simplistically*/introduced feminist ideas’ (Cadogan 1989,

11). Boys, on the other hand, did not need to have their career horizons expanded

in the same way: in the ‘patriarchal society’ that Auchmuty talks of, boys were

expected to have all sorts of careers. So while boys’ and girls’ school stories are

actually showing the same thing*/children growing up in a single-sex atmo-

sphere, being thoroughly educated and looking forward to having careers in their

future*/feminist critics have found more interest in the girls’ books, in which this

idea was unusual, than in the boys’ books. The same story can be read from

totally different feminist perspectives depending on whether it is peopled by

boys or girls: peopled by boys, a school story can be seen to conform to the

patriarchal society; peopled by girls, it is in some ways a challenge to it. But I

would argue that it is, in fact, the very similarities between the boys’ and girls’

school stories that make the girls’ stories of interest to feminist critics. It is

because the books show girls doing things that previously it had only been

acceptable to show boys doing that they are unusual, not because they show

girls acting differently to boys.

I would argue that in fact there is good reason to classify all school stories

as part of one genre, and that although there are differences and they must not

be over-looked, the similarities are very much stronger. There are sometimes,

after all, major differences between school stories written about the same gender;

these do not, however, prevent the books being seen as part of the same

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category. Are girls like boys, then, as Tom asks? Very much so in the world of

school.

Note

1. When the books were originally published, there were 58 hardback books and one

paperback book published, but several of the books were split into two parts

for the later abridged paperback editions, giving 62 books over all.

References

AUCHMUTY, ROSEMARY. 1992. A world of girls. London: The Women’s Press, 1992._____, and JOY WOTTON, eds. 2000. The encyclopaedia of boys’ school stories . 2 Vols.

Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing.

BATHURST, DAVID. 2000. Anthony Buckeridge. In The encyclopaedia of boys’ school

stories , edited by Robert J. Kirkpatrick, Rosemary Auchmuty and Joy Wotton.

Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing.

BLYTON, ENID. 1982. First term at Malory Towers. London: Granada Publishing (first

published 1945).

BRENT-DYER, ELINOR. 1941. The princess of the Chalet School. Edinburgh: W & R Chambers

(first published 1927)._____. 1952. The school at the chalet. Edinburgh: W & R Chambers (first published

1925)._____. 1982. A problem for the Chalet School . London: Armada (first published 1956)._____. 1983. The new mistress at the Chalet School . London: Armada (first published

1957)._____. 1987a. The chalet girls in camp . London: Armada (first published 1930)._____. 1987b. Tom tackles the Chalet School . London: Armada (first published 1955).

BRUCE, DORITA FAIRLIE. 1947. Dimsie: head girl. London: Oxford University Press (first

published 1933)._____. 1949. Dimsie goes to school. London: Oxford University Press (first published

1920)._____. 1983. Dimsie moves up again. Wendover: John Goodchild Publishers (first

published 1923).

BUCKERIDGE, ANTHONY. 1966. Jennings goes to school. Middlesex: Puffin Books (first

published 1950)._____. 1967. Jennings follows a clue. London: May Fair Books (first published 1951)._____. 1972. The trouble with Jennings. Surrey: Armada (first published 1960)._____. 1991. Jennings, of course! London: MacMillan Children’s Books (first published

1964).

CADOGAN, MARY. 1989. Chin up chest out Jemima! Haselmere: Bonnington Books.

DIGBY, ANNE. 1988. Second term at Trebizon. London: Puffin Books (first published 1979).

FARRER, F. W. 1858. Eric, or little by little. Publisher unknown.

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GOSLING, JU. Virtual world of girls . Available online at: http://www.ju90.co.uk/start.htm

(accessed 2 January 2004).

HUGHES, THOMAS. 1905. Tom Brown’s schooldays. London: Thomas Nelson & Sons.

LITTLEFAIR, ALISON. 1991. Reading all types of writing. Milton Keynes: Open University

Press.

MUSGRAVE, P. W. 1985. From Brown to Bunter . London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

QUIGLEY, ISABEL. 1982. The heirs of Tom Brown . London: Chatto and Windus.

REYNOLDS, KIMBERLEY. 1990. Girls only? Gender and popular children’s fiction in Britain

1880�/1910 . Hemel Hempstead: Harvester Wheatsheaf.

RICHARDS, FRANK. 1968. Billy Bunter and the school rebellion. Middlesex: Hamlyn

Publishing (first published 1967)._____. 1991. Billy Bunter of Greyfriars School. London: Hawk Books (first published

1947).

SIMMS, SUE. 2000. Introduction. In The encyclopaedia of girls’ school stories , edited by

Sue Simms, Hilary Clare, Rosemary Auchmuty and Joy Wotton. Aldershot:

Ashgate Publishing.

Penelope Fleming-Fido, Canterbury ChristChurch University College,

North Holmes Road, Canterbury, Kent CT1 1QU, UK. E-mail: jimandpen@

btopenworld.com

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