Published: May 2008.
Mary Cadogan is well known as one of the foremost commentators on girls’ fiction and popular culture.
In this book, published to celebrate her eightieth birthday, she provides a wide-ranging, authoritative and entertaining look at girls’ school stories and other period fiction.
Among the authors given individual articles are Dorita Fairlie Bruce, Enid Blyton, Elinor M Brent-Dyer, Elsie J Oxenham, LM Montgomery, and Richmal Crompton, while her more general themes include secret societies, feminism, Girl Guide fiction, and story papers.
Mary’s meticulous research and critical appraisal combine with her warm and witty style to make this a truly absorbing read. Learn what she considers the almost perfect girls’ school story, where the Silent Three hid their robes, and why Amalgamated Press artists were supposed to show schoolgirls submerged to their armpits whenever swimming costumes were worn.
‘Mary Cadogan is our leading authority on popular children’s literature…she is a guide who knows her stuff, but wears her scholarship lightly. She writes with authority, charm, intelligence and an enthusiasm that is infectious. In every sense, she gets to the heart of the matter.’ Gyles Brandreth
Articles include: My Favourite Tomboys, The Heyday of the Girl’s Own Paper, Elinor at her Very Best, Angela Brazil – A Hundred Years On, The Cliff House Papers, Little Women and Women’s Lib, Enid Blyton and the World of School, The Girls’ Crystal
The book will extensively illustrated with pictures from books and story papers, and we shall be publishing in May - in time for Mary’s 80th birthday!