The British girls’ school story was an extremely unfashionable genre for a long time. Pillorying it as old-fashioned, out of touch with modern coeducation, promoting class inequality and even casual racism, critics had gladly buried rather than praised the girls’ school story. It represented attitudes and values which made many literary critics uncomfortable, such as Empire and class exclusivity. The books were also accused of being formulaic and undemanding.

There was undoubtedly some truth in these charges. Enid Blyton’s two series of books about St. Clare’s and Malory Towers follow extremely narrow plot patterns by means of pretty unimaginative prose. It seems unfair, however, to judge a genre on its most popular examples. Blyton didn’t contribute anything to the girls’ school story except to reduce it to a formula which took the line of least resistance to produce a large number of fairly bland books.