Malory Towers
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Malory Towers is a fictional Cornish seaside boarding school which features in a series of six novels by British children's author Enid Blyton.
The series follows the heroine Darrell Rivers from her first year at Malory Towers to when she leaves. Other characters include Sally Hope (Darrell's level-headed best friend), Felicity Rivers (Darrell's younger sister), Gwendoline Mary Lacey (the form's spoilt martyr), Alicia Johns (sharp tongued, competitive and smart), Mary-Lou (small and timid, but very kind hearted), Irene (scatterbrained musical genius), Belinda (scatterbrained artistic genius), Jean (shrewd and straightforward) and Wilhelmina (Bill) (completely horse-mad). The characters tend to be stereotypes and are very similar to the set of characters in the St Clare's series, which Blyton also wrote.
The series is believed to be semi-autobiographical, and the name "Darrell Rivers" is clearly drawn from Blyton's second husband's name, Kenneth Darrell Waters. It is also widely supposed that Blyton based the creation on the famous Scottish boarding school St Leonards School in St Andrews, which is, of course, the heroine’s University destination.
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[edit] Story
Darrell, the main character, begins her career ingloriously: determined to do well and make friends, she falls under the spell of the brilliant but mischievous Alicia Johns, neglecting her schoolwork in favour of fooling around and playing pranks on the staff. The reader is treated to an early exposition of her violent temper (inherited from her father) when she rescues Mary-Lou, a smaller, weaker girl in her form, who is being held under water by the malicious Gwendoline Mary Lacey, and delivers a stinging rebuke to Gwendoline with the flat of her hand. She rebuffs Mary-Lou's attempts to make friends, since she believes Mary-Lou to be feeble and unable to stand up for herself and clashes with fellow new girl Sally Hope, who insists that she is an only child despite written and verbal assurances from Darrell's mother that she has an infant sister. This leads to another altercation, in which a violent shove from Darrell possibly exacerbates Sally's smouldering appendicitis, forcing Darrell's father (a surgeon) to perform an impromptu appendicectomy in the school's sick-bay. The experience of thinking that she has made Sally seriously ill, leads Darrell to a greater determination to conquer her temper. Sally's attitude is revealed as pathological jealousy, which is resolved by her parents leaving her infant sister behind to visit her. Sally and Mary-Lou later stand by Darrell during a malicious episode (orchestrated by Gwendoline) in which Darrell is unjustly accused of spitefully destroying Mary-Lou's fountain pen. The first book ends with Darrell and Sally being firm friends and Mary-Lou an associate.
Darrell's career from this point is smoother, and she eventually covers herself in the personal, scholastic and sporting glory that was originally expected of her: she is head of the fourth form, games captain of the fifth, and head-girl in her final year as well as being a successful lacrosse and tennis player. In all of the books she plays a pivotal role, though she is not always successful in her endeavours and indeed is temporarily stripped of her fourth-form captaincy (she is caught shaking a smaller girl who was threatening to reveal a misdeed of Darrell's out of personal spite), though she gets it back again by resolving a particularly complicated case of sibling rivalry. She is on friendly terms with most of her classmates and even makes her peace with Gwendoline Lacey at the end, when a personal tragedy strikes the vain, selfish class outcast.
At the end of her school career, Darrell is bound for the University of St Andrews.
[edit] Books
The six 'official' books of the series are:
- First Term at Malory Towers (1946)
- Second Form at Malory Towers (1947)
- Third Year at Malory Towers (1948)
- Upper Fourth at Malory Towers (1949)
- In the Fifth at Malory Towers (1950)
- Last Term at Malory Towers (1951)
The German translation of the series adds twelve books occurring after the sixth, with Darrell returning to a college associated with Malory Towers, the "Mövennest" (Malory Nest). As the story develops she returns to Malory Towers, first as educator, then she becomes matron of the famous 'North Tower' where she resided as a child. She marries one of her colleagues, has a baby girl and finally becomes headmistress of Malory Towers. Several other characters from the first six volumes appear again: Felicity (Felizitas), Darrell's sister, gets her A-Levels at Malory Towers and moves on to the Malory Nest. Later she marries one of Bill's brothers. Bill (Will) and her friend Clarissa take over the riding school of both Malory Towers and Malory Nest, Gwendoline is a student at Malory Nest in Vols. 7 to 9, and Ellen returns to Malory Towers first as teacher, marries a colleague and succeeds Darrell as matron of the North Tower when Darrell becomes headmistress in Vol. 18. Vol. 14 ("Klassentreffen auf der Burg") is about a class reunion most of the characters from the first six volumes attend.
Although these books also bear the author's name Enid Blyton, they seem not to be translations of any English books, and some serious fans question their authenticity and their right to be counted as 'canon'. The author who wrote these books is probably Rosemarie von Schach who uses several pseudonyms - such as Enid Blyton and Claudia Jones. She is best known as Tina Caspari and the likeness between Tina Caspari's books (most of them are about girls or horses) and the added Malory-Towers-books is striking.
There are also other some follow-ups in different languages, such as the Dutch books Pitty naar College and Artemis op Jacht. These catch up with Darrell's entrance at St. Andrews, adding a gay twist to the plot.
Of all of Blyton's work, Malory Towers is particularly known for the subtext of the relationships between the boarders[citation needed], which often include high degrees of infatuation and jealousy. This is a point that has been parodied in other works such as the contemporary Sugar Rush TV series, where the main character speaks about her crush on her schoolmate as an infatuation 'à la Malory Towers'.
[edit] Characters
Characters include:
- Darrell Rivers (Forms 1-6)
- Sally Hope (Forms 1-6)
- Gwendoline Lacey (Forms 1-6)
- Irene (Forms 1-6)
- Emily Lake (although she is largely unnoticed, and not heard of from Form 3)(Forms 1-2)
- Violet (although she is largely unnoticed, not heard of from Form 2)(Form 1)
- Jean (Forms 1-3)
- Alicia Johns (Forms 1-6)
- Betty Hill (Forms 1-6)
- Mary-Lou (Forms 1-6)
- Katherine (Form 1)
- Belinda Morris (Forms 2-6)
- Ellen Wilson (Form 2)
- Daphne Turner (Forms 2-6, although is heard from rarely since Form 5)
- Wilhelmina Robinson (Forms 3-6)
- Mavis (Forms 3-5)
- Clarissa Carter (Forms 4-6)
- June Johns (Forms 4-6)
- Felicity Rivers (Forms 1-3 minor, Forms 4-6 major)
- Maureen Little (Forms 5-6)
- Moira Linton (Forms 5-6)
- Catherine Gray (Form 5)
- Amanda Chartelow (Form 6)
- Jo(sephine) Jones (Form 6)
- Suzanne (French Exchange student, Form 6)
- Zerelda Brass (US Exchange student, Form 3)
[edit] Similar books
Blyton wrote two other series about life at a boarding school: St. Clare's and the Naughtiest Girl series. Of the three, Malory Towers may arguably be the most famous and internationally known.
