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Eustacia Goes to the Chalet School

(The Chalet School #6)

Elinor M. Brent-Dyer

4.01 · Rating details · 397 ratings · 27 reviews

"A rotten little sneak!" "A smug prig!" That's how the girls at the Chalet School describe Eustacia, and she's only been there a day! Somehow they'll have to take her down a peg or two. Nursing a bitter grudge, Eustacia plans her revenge - a revenge that will have dire consequences for the school. ...more

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Paperback, 300 pages

Published January 1st 1969 by HarperCollins (first published 1930)

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Aug 05, 2014 Shawne rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, chalet-school, re-read

It's odd to say so, but re-reading Elinor M. Brent-Dyer's most enduring series really makes very clear that EUSTACIA GOES TO THE CHALET SCHOOL is where a great deal of it really falls into place. The first five books were all about the school finding its feet and identity - from being founded, to growing, developing, and brushing up against a rival school. With EUSTACIA, the school has settled into itself, and the template for many of the remaining books in the series - a girl arrives at the Cha It's odd to say so, but re-reading Elinor M. Brent-Dyer's most enduring series really makes very clear that EUSTACIA GOES TO THE CHALET SCHOOL is where a great deal of it really falls into place. The first five books were all about the school finding its feet and identity - from being founded, to growing, developing, and brushing up against a rival school. With EUSTACIA, the school has settled into itself, and the template for many of the remaining books in the series - a girl arrives at the Chalet School who does not fit into the proper schoolgirl mould and must pick up the right values to make her a real Chalet girl - is set.

The girl in question is, of course, Eustacia Benson - an unfortunate protagonist who's introduced as an "arrant little prig", whose cloistered upbringing by her elderly parents has turned her into a snappy, unsociable martinet. She turns up at the Chalet School quite incapable of understanding the difference between reporting and sneaking on her school-mates, and soon manages to antagonise everyone around her: from form-mates to prefects and even the staff. Few characters are as alienating as poor Eustacia, and many confrontations with characters and tropes we know and love (including Brent-Dyer's deep adoration of mountain-top peril) must take place before she can really become the person she's meant to be.

It's a formula that will grow more tedious as the series goes on, but here, it still feels remarkably fresh - especially with Brent-Dyer operating at the height of her powers. The writing is, as always, full of rich character detail and local flavour, sprinkled with some choice sarcasm that feels as biting now as it must have done when she wrote the book over eighty years ago. Brent-Dyer's characterisation of Eustacia herself is also quite masterful, creating a very difficult, genuinely unlikable child, while providing some real insight into why she's as difficult as she is. The rivalry that springs up between Eustacia and Joey Bettany, our window into the School and all its doings, feels real too: at this point, the latter remains a credible character, whose great popular appeal does not disguise or excuse the fact that she can be headstrong, hot-tempered and tactless at times.

There's also some fun to be had for the long-time Chalet reader to see major characters coming to the fore: Miss Annersley, who has hitherto played a colourless and very tiny role as a supporting player within the School, is suddenly gifted a personality and many conversations with girls and staff alike. It presages her eventual promotion to Headmistress, even as Mademoiselle herself gains more of a spine than she's demonstrated in the preceding tales. Schoolgirls who develop quite distinctive personalities of their own in future books are suddenly to be found as an extant part of the school population in EUSTACIA, like Elsie Carr, Anne Seymour and Louise Redfield. Leave us not forget Miss Wilson and her continuing misfortune in bringing girls on mountain-climbing expeditions, whether or not they're fleeing from the Nazis. DON'T GO MOUNTAIN-CLIMBING WITH YOUR STUDENTS, NELL, IT WILL ONLY LEAD TO YOU TURNING YOUR ANKLE AND/OR YOUR HAIR GOING WHITE!!! ...more

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Aug 19, 2015 Toni rated it really liked it

Shelves: chalet-school, re-read, school-stories, read-in-2015

Poor Eustacia. "Arrant little prig" she may be, but I defy any girl who has spent the first fourteen years of her life living with elderly parents in Oxford and reading erudite books, to relish being told by her nearest remaining relative that she is unlovable, and then being sent away, not just to boarding school, but to a boarding school as far away as humanly possible, where she is forced to take part in physical activity that she loathes, has no time to herself, and is told that every value ...more

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Aug 16, 2016 Orinoco Womble (tidy bag and all) rated it liked it

Shelves: 1920s-1930s, children, for-the-easily-entertained

I only have access to one more of the Chalet School books and for now, I'm just as glad. They're getting awfully repetitive. Even when the authoress tries to ring a few changes she not only finds herself repeating paragraphs from previous books on how "delicate" Joey and the Robin are, she actually repeats herself about the Robin twice in this book, almost word for word!! Yes we know her mom died of TB. You've told us that every time she appears. We know everyone's afraid she has "inherited" the I only have access to one more of the Chalet School books and for now, I'm just as glad. They're getting awfully repetitive. Even when the authoress tries to ring a few changes she not only finds herself repeating paragraphs from previous books on how "delicate" Joey and the Robin are, she actually repeats herself about the Robin twice in this book, almost word for word!! Yes we know her mom died of TB. You've told us that every time she appears. We know everyone's afraid she has "inherited" the germ. (Which is not how you catch TB, but never mind.) But we are told twice--twice in the same book!--all about the special regime Dr Jem has instituted for her of rest and sleep and specially nutritious meals. Never mind that Joey herself was stated as being "stronger than ever" after an attack of pleuropneumonia last time--any excuse is a good one to say that she is "not strong" and send her to bed for the day. (Really, Miss B-D, do make up your mind! Are these girls candidates for an affecting deathbed scene, or are they not? One minute the Robin is rosy and strong enough to "astonish" the doctors, the next a "nervous" upset can destroy the health of this suprisingly robust child, "setting her back a year" just because she is worried about Joey for a day. )
Flood takes the place of fire in this installment, along with blizzards. Teachers as well as girls are constantly being swept into the arms of burly mountain men and carried hither and yon--!!

At first I was interested; the Chalet School gets its first thoroughly unpleasant, arrogant little prig (the author's description) for a student in the form of Eustacia. She's a bookworm, a know-all, and a nasty piece of work; a tattletale who thinks herself above rules and even basic obedience to her teachers. (Eustacia is told at one point that if she had been at boy's school she would have been thrashed, ie caned. Curiously, in those days European and English girls' boarding schools practiced smacking and beating your hand with a ruler for infractions, but not in Brent-Dyer's universe. ) But I have to be honest, here. Her "normal" auntie, who takes her in at the beginning of the book, is about as priggish and nasty as Eustacia herself, though neither she nor the authoress recognise that fact. Don't spend time with the kid, trying to get to know her better; don't teach by example, don't cut her any slack, and above all, don't give her a second chance! Oh, no--throw up your hands after just a few weeks, and shovel her off overseas to a boarding school; that way you won't have to deal with her as a person!

The old "rebellious student runs away from school and comes a cropper" trope is here again, as well as spending hours in a coma (described as such, this time) in the rain. But no rheumatic fever for her! She's too much of a prig to be redeemed by an actual illness, though she is redeemed for having to pay physical penance for her wrongheadedness. Suddenly she is all sweetness and light and all the anger vanishes in a shared laugh--oh yeah, because Chalet girls are so special!

yeah. right. ...more

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Aug 10, 2007 Vass rated it liked it

Shelves: schoolstories, childrensliterature

It was... challenging. It pushed a lot of my buttons in the bad way. This is not to say that I hated it, just that, well, it was challenging.

I really don't think it's such a dreadful personality flaw to hate (or even simultaneously hate and have a crush on) Joey Bettany. Bill and Charlie are still my favourite characters.

I prefer the prig to the reformed girl. One of the tropes I really really hate in school stories, especially the Chalet School, is when a girl can redeem herself and become acce It was... challenging. It pushed a lot of my buttons in the bad way. This is not to say that I hated it, just that, well, it was challenging.

I really don't think it's such a dreadful personality flaw to hate (or even simultaneously hate and have a crush on) Joey Bettany. Bill and Charlie are still my favourite characters.

I prefer the prig to the reformed girl. One of the tropes I really really hate in school stories, especially the Chalet School, is when a girl can redeem herself and become acceptable, worthwhile, 'loveable', through conforming to the limited social norm of a community of schoolgirls, and at the cost of the obliteration of her entire past personality. Enid Blyton's actually *less* bad in this particular area, which isn't to say she isn't an offender (hello, Mavis?)

"Jolly glad to see you at last, Stacie. Your sister wasn't nice at all; but I'm jolly sure you're going to be one of us in no time!" (159)

"Eustacia was her ordinary smug self again; and so she remained until the terrible happening put an end to all feuds and all hates, and a new Eustacia Benson was born who had very little in common with the old one." (129)

That's not touching, it's creepy. Keep mashing on those buttons, why don't you, Brent-Dyer.

And as usual (Eustacia is here the the direct female equivalent of Eustace Clarence Scrubb from Voyage of the Dawn Treader) it's the fault of these modern English parents with their ruinous ideas of treating children like adults. No, Eustacia's parents weren't bad because they were cold, classist boors who didn't teach her manners or socialisation or self-knowledge or indeed any academic subjects except those in her father's field of study... no, they were bad because they let her be too grown-up.

The ideal state for a child, according to these books, is one of such receptivity that their salvation or damnation is completely in their parents' hands (unless they're so fortunate as to be sent to a good school, naturally,) while all the consequences fall on the child. ...more

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Mar 08, 2008 Celia rated it really liked it

Shelves: chalet-school, re-read

Book 6 of the Chalet School series, and we meet Eustacia, probably the worst student ever (so far, at least). To give you a sample, the first sentence of this book - "There is no disguising the fact that Eustacia Benson was the most arrant little prig that ever existed." (Which is an awesome insult, by the way - I have been waiting for the opportunity to call someone an arrant little prig.)

(Also, I love that the synopsis on the book page makes it sound like Eustacia is plotting to firebomb the C ...more

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Oct 05, 2012 Daisy May Johnson rated it it was amazing

Shelves: childrens-literature, classics, girlsown, historical, school-stories, series

The sixth in the series, rich with the gorgeous detail of the Tyrol and the sheer thrill of the early titles, Eustacia Goes To The Chalet School is spectacular. It's sort of a blueprint of everything the Chalet School series could be when it was on form.

Following the now traditional concept of new term, new girls, this term sees Eustacia join the Chalet School. Eustacia is sort of different. She's an 'arrant little prig'. It took me a long time to actually figure out what that means but it's not ...more

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Dec 10, 2013 Donna Boultwood rated it it was amazing

What a horrid little girl! I wondered what it was going to take to turn things around. As per usual all comes right in the end.

I was really shocked at one sentence though - and I suppose it shows the age the book was written - Mary says "we'll have to work like niggers" - terrible. ...more

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Nov 22, 2012 Tria rated it liked it

Shelves: genre-school, genre-young-adult, needs-librarian, owned-paper-unabridged, wishlist-ebook

Chambers hardback edition. Review to come.

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Nov 13, 2019 Ejayen rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: school-stories, series, historical-fiction

Fun, but not my favorite I accidentally caught sight of the last paragraph and that completely spoiled the ending for me. (I had been between two thoughts.)

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Dec 05, 2012 Parinita rated it really liked it · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Eustacia Goes to the Chalet School is the sixth in the series and, fortunately for me, is still set in the Austrian Tyrol. Of the books I own, the Austrian years were my favourite and firmly put Austria on my travel wishlist. Although the later books, with their references to familiar characters, were pretty enjoyable too.

The book follows the travails of 14-year-old Eustacia Benson who, in the very first sentence, is described as “the most arrant little prig that ever existed.” The narrator make Eustacia Goes to the Chalet School is the sixth in the series and, fortunately for me, is still set in the Austrian Tyrol. Of the books I own, the Austrian years were my favourite and firmly put Austria on my travel wishlist. Although the later books, with their references to familiar characters, were pretty enjoyable too.

The book follows the travails of 14-year-old Eustacia Benson who, in the very first sentence, is described as “the most arrant little prig that ever existed.” The narrator makes no bones about the fact that the eponymous character is thoroughly unlikable. But deliciously detestable characters are exactly what make books fun. Even the ones who you want to rip out from the pages and smack, they work so well precisely because they push our buttons.

Eustacia didn’t evoke any such violent tendency on my part though. True, she’s selfish and self-righteous, randomly flies into a temper and, horror of horrors, tells tales (utter blasphemy in a school story). However, the way she casually breaks rules and makes enemies with brazen cheek made me laugh at her audacity more than anything else. Eustacia is thoroughly entertaining, she certainly doesn’t deserve the ire the narrator has in store for her. Heck, even Voldemort got off with mass genocide with nary a peep from a neutral narrator.

Through the rest of the book, Eustacia wages a perpetual war against the Chalet School darling Joey Bettany, is wholly ostracised for a fairly minor infraction and has the whole school baying for her blood. At one point, the entire school is asked for suggestions about the best way to tackle the unpleasant girl in a school of fairly well-behaved students. You almost have to feel sorry for the girl.

The book also includes a snowball fight (I only mention it because it had all the strategies of a battle, which I would have loved to be a part of), a feud between two forms, a half-term picnic where they end up getting caught in a snowstorm (of course they do! Nothing’s ever simple in the Chalet School world), pranks, a broken foot, a nearly fatal accident (another staple) and Bernhilda’s wedding, who was one of the original students of the school. An already-married Gisela (the school’s very first Head Girl) chooses to remain at home without explanation which, knowing Brent-Dyer’s ways, made me suspicious of a pregnancy.

The book’s Exciting Happening had Eustacia running away. I almost expected Joey to play heroine again and was thoroughly relieved that she didn’t. Apparently, she nearly died of pneumonia last term (in a previous book) which was reason enough for Brent-Dyer to lay off the damsel-in-perennial-distress, at least for this story. The book made for a great read, but then again, I’m biased towards the charming series, insanity and all. And the last chapter made me want to yell “I knew it!” in triumph – Gisela went and delivered her baby. ...more

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Apr 07, 2016 Kerry rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2016, 8, childrens, reread, rereads-in-2016

I'm calling this a reread as I have read the paperback version of Eustacia before. All the same, it's kind of a new read as well.

While I've known for a long time that many of the Chalet school paperpacks were abridged, I didn't always realise how drastic some of those abridgements had been. This is one that was chopped to pieces. Reading this new, Girls Gone By edition, I occasionally went and pulled my old Armada paperback of the shelf to discover that a long chapter in the one I was reading ha ...more

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May 20, 2009 Sally rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: boarding-school, chalet-school, childrens, austria, chalet-school-ts

Haha!! What a holy terror of a girl Eustacia is! This was a re-read, but it's been so long since my first (and I think only) read that I didn't recognise much of it, if any, really.

Eustacia is awesome to read about. She's just plain awful! An uppity little sneak who looks down on everyone and doesn't care who she is rude to. Older students, prefects, even teachers! Certainly makes for fun reading! I was laughing out loud more than once at her antics.

Interesting to re-read a very early book in th ...more

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Jan 25, 2008 Sue rated it really liked it

Shelves: fiction, teenage, read-2009, read-2003, read-2020

Eustacia is the daughter of an eminent professor who dies at the start of the book. Left with an aunt and five lively boy cousins, she becomes upset and is quite obnoxious. Then she is sent to the Chalet School. She considers herself superior to the other girls, which inevitably leads to some clashes and - eventually - high drama.

This is sixth in the lengthy series, and I'm delighted to have it in hardback now. Although apparently not much was cut, I found it much better than the abridged paperb ...more

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May 29, 2011 Boneist rated it it was amazing

Shelves: read-in-2011-since-e-o-may, 3rd-person

This is the second of the books I bought yesterday, although it's a few books further on. I love these books; they're a different world, being as they're set in the 1920/30's, yet they're still accessible.

I enjoyed this book, though I felt it ended a little sooner than it should have. It's your basic "new, disagreeable girl joins the school, but comes good in the end" story, but still enjoyable. ...more

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Aug 12, 2009 Carolynne rated it really liked it

Shelves: british-school-stories

One of the best of the Chalet School series. Eustacia is bright, but arrogant and self-centered. Naturally she has to be whipped into shape, and Joey is helpful in achieving that! A character study, but there is lots of Alpine adventure too.

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Jan 04, 2017 Emilia rated it really liked it

I thought this book was good, but not as good as the previous chalet school books. Still, I enjoyed it and would certainly recommend it.

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May 13, 2017 Beth rated it really liked it

Shelves: reviewed

I really like this one. The details are well done, starting with Mrs. Cochrane (a chillingly realistic evil stepmother type), all the way through the prefects' handling the library situation, especially Deira; she's never been noted for good sense, but I thought this was spectacular:

"I did not see that [the library rule] need apply to me. I have been accustomed to have access to any book in my father's library, and I should not mark or harm them as an ordinary girl might do. I dare say many of

...more

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Aug 29, 2019 Geraldine rated it really liked it

Shelves: children, read-years-ago, series, 20s-30s, 2019

I shall probably shut about this after this book (or perhaps not) but Robin isn't a baby. If she's at school, she doesn't need a cot!

I know she's delicate and I have found that Mother-to-child transmission of TB is a serious matter even today, let alone then. I just don't think that staying up beyond 7pm is a high trigger factor in itself. And poor old Eustacia having months of bed rest just because of a pulled muscle in her back.

Silliness aside, if you're an adult reading Chalet School Books, y ...more

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Nov 14, 2018 Muriel McIvor rated it it was amazing

Totally Loooove C.S. No more to be said. Find yourself the first CS book and go forward.

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May 16, 2020 Vicky Price rated it really liked it

Shelves: childhood-classics

My first Chalet School. Piqued my interest enough to start borrowing / buying the other 61 books in the series.

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Oct 07, 2017 Paige Wearing rated it really liked it

A favorite childhood series of mine.

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Dec 22, 2018 Heidi Hepburn rated it liked it

Placeholder

P - ER

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Apr 04, 2018 Meira (readingbooksinisrael) rated it it was ok

Shelves: austria, public-domain, school-stories

Really? Stacie?

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Nov 29, 2013 Deborah rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Ah, who can forget Eustacia, the conceited, smug new girl who is so bad she has to injure her back in order to become a nice person. EBD doesn't dwell on this - it's more of a magic wand type transformation (pouf! You shall be a proper Chalet girl!) - and actually it's everything that comes before it which makes this such a good Chalet book. Joey is at the stroppy teenager stage, the school is still small enough that you feel you know everybody, all the best teachers are on the staff, and Madge ...more

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Mar 18, 2016 Jane Irish Nelson rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: childen-s, contemporary

Previously only read the abridged Armada edition, so it was very nice to be able to read the new unabridged edition from Girls Gone By Publishers.

When Eustacia's parents die, her father's will states that she should be sent to school, much to her aunt's relief. At the suggestion of Grizel Cochrane's stepmother, the Chalet School is chosen, in hopes that she will find her place amongst its students, many of whom have experienced more rigid upbringings than the average English girl. Unfortunately, ...more

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Nov 05, 2011 Siân rated it really liked it

Book 7 of my Chalet School rereads. I’ve not read them since before I went to Pertisau and now they’re even more wonderful as I can picture the settings in my head.
Upgraded Eustacia to 4 stars as this time round I really enjoyed it. Eustacia’s journey to “Chalet Girl” is torturous but there’s some fun moments.

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About Elinor M. Brent-Dyer

Elinor M. Brent-Dyer

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Elinor M. Brent-Dyer was born as Gladys Eleanor May Dyer on 6th April 1894, in South Shields in the industrial northeast of England, and grew up in a terraced house which had no garden or inside toilet. She was the only daughter of Eleanor Watson Rutherford and Charles Morris Brent Dyer. Her father, who had been married before, left home when she was three years old. In 1912, her brother Henzell d Elinor M. Brent-Dyer was born as Gladys Eleanor May Dyer on 6th April 1894, in South Shields in the industrial northeast of England, and grew up in a terraced house which had no garden or inside toilet. She was the only daughter of Eleanor Watson Rutherford and Charles Morris Brent Dyer. Her father, who had been married before, left home when she was three years old. In 1912, her brother Henzell died at age 17 of cerebro-spinal fever. After her father died, her mother remarried in 1913.

Elinor was educated at a small local private school in South Shields and returned there to teach when she was eighteen after spending two years at the City of Leeds Training College. Her teaching career spanned 36 years, during which she taught in a wide variety of state and private schools in the northeast, in Middlesex, Bedfordshire, Hampshire, and finally in Hereford.

In the early 1920s she adopted the name Elinor Mary Brent-Dyer. A holiday she spent in the Austrian Tyrol at Pertisau-am-Achensee gave her the inspiration for the first location in the Chalet School series. However, her first book, 'Gerry Goes to School', was published in 1922 and was written for the child actress Hazel Bainbridge. Her first 'Chalet' story, 'The School at the Chalet', was originally published in 1925.

In 1930, the same year that 'Jean of Storms' was serialised, she converted to Roman Catholicism.

In 1933 the Brent-Dyer household (she lived with her mother and stepfather until her mother's death in 1957) moved to Hereford. She travelled daily to Peterchurch as a governess.

When her stepfather died she started her own school in Hereford, The Margaret Roper School. It was non-denominational but with a strong religious tradition. Many Chalet School customs were followed, the girls even wore a similar uniform made in the Chalet School's colours of brown and flame. Elinor was rather untidy, erratic and flamboyant and not really suited to being a headmistress. After her school closed in 1948 she devoted most of her time to writing.

Elinor's mother died in 1957 and in 1964 she moved to Redhill, where she lived in a joint establishment with fellow school story author Phyllis Matthewman and her husband, until her death on 20th September 1969.

During her lifetime Elinor M. Brent-Dyer published 101 books but she is remembered mainly for her Chalet School series. The series numbers 58 books and is the longest-surviving series of girls' school-stories ever known, having been continuously in print for more than 70 years. One hundred thousand paperback copies are still being sold each year.

Among her published books are other school stories; family, historical, adventure and animal stories; a cookery book, and four educational geography-readers. She also wrote plays and numerous unpublished poems and was a keen musician.

In 1994, the year of the centenary of her Elinor Brent-Dyer's birth, Friends of the Chalet School put up plaques in Pertisau, South Shields and Hereford, and a headstone was erected on her grave in Redstone Cemetery, since there was not one previously. They also put flowers on her grave on the anniversaries of her birth and death and on other special occasions.
...more