The Library

Brief Overview of School Stories

What is it that makes a piece of literature specifically "children's" literature? The roots go back as far as you might care to trace them, but the seventeenth century was the time the first books specifically aimed at children started to appear. Here, for example, is Goody Two-Shoes, destined to go through life with just the one shoe, until at last she is given a whole pair of shoes (what more could a girl want?), and ends up marrying into money.

Goody Two-Shoes is an early example of a rags to riches story, and of course something of a morality tale. The publisher was John Newbery, and this was a seam that he was to mine successfully over the years. He took the then unknown Oliver Goldsmith under his wing, and there is what might be termed "firm speculation" that in fact Goldsmith wrote Goody Two-Shoes.

Once the market had been discovered, endless children's books were produced. Many of the earlier works are specifically for children, rather than about them. Nearly always instructive in some way, they were little more than thinly disguised attempts at education. Others were imaginative tales, often illustrated. Over the eighteenth century many of the old fairy tales that would have been viewed by previous generations as being for adults were softened and altered out of recognition – the dreaded "retold for children".

The foundations were laid for the characters and their attributes we now take as read for Robin Hood, Dick Whittington and Tom Thumb (as seen here) amongst many others.

But it wasn't until the nineteenth century that school stories began to become popular. This was an era of Empire, when the public school was in its heyday, and school traditions (strange, uplifting or regrettable) began to come about. The English boy (no girls yet) would go to Eton, Marlborough, or one of many other public schools, and then often into the Law, the Church, or the Army. A respectable contingent joined the civil service, perhaps to end up as Governors of colonies.

Whilst there may well be a certain nostalgia for those times, the reality was often one of beatings, endless cold and hunger, and often inadequate teaching. They were environments that worked extremely well for the talented or gifted child, setting them up for life, but extremely badly for others.

If you were good at sport (a wet bob or a dry bob) or academically gifted, then the world really was open to you. If you were a bit of a dunderhead, or merely average in everything, it could be a trying time.

What the schools did have was a shared commonality of purpose, and because of that certain themes, styles, rituals – ways of doing things – were also held in common. That meant that when Hughes wrote his famous Tom Brown's Schooldays, it worked both as a story and a carrier of nostalgia for a wide audience. Whilst few readers would actually have been toasted in front of the fire, every school had its own Flashman, every school its own song. The readership lapped it up, especially those who had never been to a public school.

By the twentieth century, schools were becoming more enlightened (a slower process in some than others). It's easy to find examples of recent figures who hated their schools – John Betjeman loathed Marlborough for instance. But many remember their schooldays fondly and happily, and saw them as a golden time of innocence and fun, as well as the perfect start in life for them.

This was also the era when girls began to feature in school stories too. The redoubtable Angela Brazil, Eleanor Brent-Dyer and Dorothea Moore were joining the ranks of Frank Richards and Anthony Buckeridge. The stories by now were much more fun too – no longer were they grim tales of bullies or obvious moral choice. Stories were now being written purely about winning the cup or the match or the house colours, and the children in the stories were more like real people.

Humour began to play its part too. Crompton's William tales are hugely funny, as are Bunter and Jennings. This element only served to broaden the appeal. Now the children in the stories began to confuse adults, to play tricks on them, to get away with things. None of them are really bad – just a bit naughty, good at playing the system for their benefit and our amusement. Of course, more often than not they are found out and punished, but the message isn't one of conformity. Rather it's one of empowerment – some adults are just big people who sometimes get it wrong too, not authoritarian figures you cross at your peril (although there are plenty of those too).

During the late sixties and seventies, school fiction began to change again. Gone were the public school stories of pluck and valour, to be replaced by much more realistic tales of drama, drugs, broken homes and once again, moral choices. But still the older stories were being reprinted – Chalet School, Jennings, even Bunter.

The attraction of the fantasy school world, populated by cheery pupils, masters and mistresses who veer between being supportive and understanding adults and cartoon-like figures who can so easily be fooled by a child is hard to beat. School grounds and towers and dormitories and corridors resonate with mysterious chants and slogans. Often there is a private language that would be easily transportable. Wharton, Cherry and co were heard in Bunter's Greyfriars, but fifty years later they could have moved to Jennings' Linbury Court and not felt out of place.

Take those ingredients, update them a little for the twentieth century reader, add a dose of magic, and instantly you have Harry Potter. And what better current example is there of enormous and ongoing popularity of the English school story?

Long may they live!