The school story is a fiction genre centering on older pre-adolescent and adolescent school life, at

its most popular in the first half of the twentieth century. While examples do exist in other countries, it
is most commonly set in English boarding schools and mostly written in girls' and boys' subgenres,
reflecting the single-sex education typical until the 1950s. It focuses largely on friendship, honor and
loyalty between pupils. Plots involving sports events, bullies, secrets, rivalry and bravery are often
used to shape the school story.
The popularity of the traditional school story declined after the Second World War, but school stories
have remained popular in other forms, with a focus on state run coeducational schools, and themes
involving more modern concerns such as racial issues, family life, sexuality and drugs (see Grange
Hill). More recently it has seen a revival with the success of the Harry Potter series, which uses
many plot motifs commonly found in the traditional school story.

Contents
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1History
o 1.1Early works
o 1.2Emergence of school stories in nineteenth century
1.2.1Thomas Hughes and successors
1.2.2Talbot Baines Reed
1.2.3Gender difference in school stories
o 1.3Twentieth century
o 1.4Decline of the school story genre
2Elsewhere
3Themes
4Writers
5See also
o 5.1Topics
o 5.2Writers
o 5.3Characters and works
6Notes
7External links

History[edit]
Early works[edit]
The Governess, or The Little Female Academy by Sarah Fielding, published in 1749, is generally
seen as the first boarding school story.[1] Fielding's novel was a moralistic tale with tangents offering
instruction on behavior, and each of the nine girls in the novel relate their story individually.
However, it did establish aspects of the boarding school story which were repeated in later works.
The school is self-contained with little connection to local life, the girls are encouraged to live
together with a sense of community and collective responsibility.[2] Fielding's approach was imitated
and used as a formula by both her contemporaries and other writers into the 19th century.[3]

Emergence of school stories in nineteenth century[edit]

School stories were a somewhat late arrival as a popular literature. Children as a market were
generally not targeted until well into the nineteenth century. There was concern about the moral
effect of novels on young minds, and those that were published tended to lean towards giving moral
instruction.[4]
Thomas Hughes and successors[edit]
Jane Eyre (1847) by Charlotte Bront, and Dombey and Son (1848) and David Copperfield (1850)
by Charles Dickens had school story elements, which generated considerable public interest[5] and
close to 100 school stories had been published between 1749 and 1857, the year that Tom Brown's
School Days by Thomas Hughes appeared. It is perhaps the most famous of all such tales, and its
popularity helped firmly establish the genre, which rapidly expanded in the decades to follow across
thousands of novels.[6]
Hughes never wrote another school story: the sequel Tom Brown at Oxford focused on university
life. However, more school stories followed such as F.W. Farrar's Eric, or, Little by Little: A Tale of
Roslyn School (1858), Revd H.C. Adams' Schoolboy Honour; A Tale of Halminster College (1861)
and A.R. Hope's Stories of Whitminster (1873). In 1870 the Education Act paved the way for
universal education for children, and so gave the market for school stories a considerable boost,
which led to some publishers advertising novels specifically as school stories.[7]
Boys' magazines also began to be published which featured school stories, the best known
being Boy's Own Paper, with its first issues appearing 1879.[8]
Talbot Baines Reed[edit]
Talbot Baines Reed wrote a number of school stories in the 1880s, and contributed considerably to
shaping the genre, taking inspiration from Thomas Hughes. His most famous work was The Fifth
Form at St. Dominic's (1887) (serialised 188182). It was reprinted on a number of occasions, selling
750,000 copies in a 1907 edition. While seated in Baines Reed's Christian values, The Fifth Form at
St Dominic's showed a definite leaning from the school story as instructional moral literature for
children and with greater focus on the pupils and a defined plot.[9]
Gender difference in school stories[edit]
As schools were segregated by gender in the nineteenth century, school stories naturally formed two
separate but related genres of girls' school stories and boys' school stories.[10]
There had been an increase in female schooling from the 1850s, augmented by the 1870 Education
Act. L. T. Meade, who also wrote historical novels and was a magazine editor, become the most
popular writer of girls' school stories in the final decade of the nineteenth century. Her stories
focused on upper class pupils at boarding schools who learned to earn trust by making mistakes,
they had little focus on sports and were primarily interested in friendships and loyalty. They remained
largely rooted in Victorian values and preparing girls to be proper wives and mothers.[11]

Twentieth century[edit]
Most literature for girls at the turn of the twentieth century focused on the value of self-sacrifice,
moral virtues, dignity and aspiring to finding a proper position in societal order. This was to a large
extent changed by the publication of Angela Brazil's girls school stories in the early twentieth
century, which featured energetic characters who challenged authority, played pranks, and lived in
their own youthful world in which adult concerns were sidelined.[12]
Twentieth-century boys' school stories were often comical in nature examples being the Billy
Bunter stories and the Jennings series.
Coeducation remained rare in boarding school stories. Enid Blyton's Naughtiest Girl series was
unusually set in a progressive coeducational school. J. K. Rowlings' Harry Potter series represents a
more recent example of a mixed-sex boarding school.[13]

Decline of the school story genre[edit]

The peak period for school stories was between the 1880s and the end of the Second World War.
Comics featuring school stories also become popular in the 1930s.[14]
After World War II boarding school stories waned in popularity. Coeducational schools for all British
schoolchildren were being funded by the public purse; critics, librarians and educational specialists
became interested in creating a more modern curriculum and tended to see stories of this type as
outdated and irrelevant. School stories have remained popular, however, with a focus shifting
towards state-funded day schools with both girls and boys, and dealing with more contemporary
issues such as sexuality, racism, drugs and family difficulties. The Bannerdale series of five novels
(194956) by Geoffrey Trease, starting with No Boats on Bannermere, involved two male and two
female pupils of day schools in the Lake District, and a solo mother.
The Harry Potter series of novels has in some respects revived the genre, although having a strong
leaning towards fantasy conventions. Elements of the school story prominent in Harry
Potter including the action being described almost exclusively from the point of view of pupils.

Elsewhere[edit]
While school stories originated in Britain with Tom Brown's Schooldays, school stories were also
published in other countries. 'Schulromane' were popular in Germany in both the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries, and school stories were also published in Soviet Russia. Some American classic
children's novels also relate to the genre, including What Katy Did at School (1873) by Susan
Coolidge, Little Men (1871) by Louisa May Alcott and Little Town on the Prairie (1941) by Laura
Ingalls Wilder. The 1980s and 1990s Sweet Valley High series by Francine Pascal and others are
set in California.
However, the core school story theme of the school as a sort of character in itself, actively formed by
the pupils and their enjoyment of being there, is primarily a British and American phenomenon. In
France, Mmoires d'Un Collgien (1907) by Andr Laurie (Jean-Franois Paschal Grousset), set in a
boarding-school context similar to Talbot Baines Reed's St. Dominic's in England and Arthur
Stanwood Pier's St. Timothy's in America,[15] would have a considerable influence on French stories
in the genre. German school stories tended to be written for adults, in the tradition of the
earlier Bildungsroman, and explored the disruption the school environment made to a character's
sense of individuality. Soviet stories tended to focus on how individualistic behaviour could be
corrected and brought into line with collective goals by the school environment.[16] See
also manga such as School Rumble and US dramas Beverly Hills 90210, Glee and Pretty Little
Liars.

Themes[edit]
The vast majority of school stories involve the culture of boarding schools in general. Common
themes include honour, decency, sportsmanship and loyalty. Competitive team sports often feature
and an annual sports event between rival school houses is frequently a part of the plot. Friendships
between pupils are a common focus and also relationships with particular teachers, and the difficulty
of new pupils fitting into the school culture is a central theme.[17]
Bullies often feature in school stories, particularly boys' school stories. Identical twins appear with
some frequency and are often the subject of comedy.[18] School principals are usually even handed
and wise and provide guidance to characters [19] and will often bend the rules to get them out of
trouble.[20]
Earlier in the development of the genre, school stories avoided dealing
with adolescence or puberty directly.[21] Eric, or, Little by Little by Dean Farrar was a classic moral
tract set in a boarding school. Its Victorian tone was never adopted as generic convention.

Writers[edit]