First Term at Malory Towers

Occasionally a little too jolly hockey sticks, but also sharp and insightful on tween girls, what bothers them, and how they interact with each other. A worthwhile quick read of a children's classic, and I found myself pretty invested in the girls of North Tower by the end.

It's too bad I didn't discover this series of books until now. My girls would have loved them when they were little. One of their favorite games to play together was Boarding House (frequent viewings of A Little Princess). It was fun to read about it - it really reminded me of Hogwarts. But as a parent, it just makes me think about how horrible it would be to send your 12 year old off to have someone else raise her. How did they do that? How do they still do that? It's just so against everything I feel about parenting. But a fun, easy read.

Originally published in 1946, this first entry in Enid Blyton's immensely popular six-book Malory Towers series - which follows its heroine, Darrell Rivers, through her years at a boarding school in Cornwall - seems to include many of the characters and plot devices that have come to be so closely associated - almost to the point of cliche - with the girls' school-story genre.

In Darrell herself, we have the eager new girl - enthusiastic, good-hearted, determined to be a credit to her school - who (as is evident from the start) is the "right sort." The mischievous prankster, Alicia Johns, who is the heroine's first choice as friend; the snobby spoiled girl, Gwendoline Lacey, with whom the heroine clashes; the terribly shy "mouse" of a show more girl, Mary Lou, who worships the heroine; and the inexplicably hostile girl, Sally Hope, who ends up being very important to the heroine indeed, are all examples of "types" that should be quite familiar, even to readers who have only encountered a few such novels. The form head-girl, who has a quiet, natural authority; the clever, but absent-minded scholar; and the Scots girl who is good with money (groan!), all also appear in First Term at Malory Towers.

Just as many of the characters will be familiar to the reader, so too will some of the events. The (rather tame) pranks that Alicia plays on the teachers, Darrell's academic slip-up, the rivalries amongst the girls, Mary Lou's unexpected bravery, the misunderstanding concerning Sally's illness, and the false accusation against Darrell, in the matter of Mary Lou's fountain pen, are all thrown together in a story that felt rather formulaic. Worse, Blyton's tone can sometimes veer into the moralistic, as with Darrell's excessive self condemnation, when she loses her temper. I couldn't help comparing this with the more natural depiction of girlhood conflict provided by Evelyn Smith, in books such as Seven Sisters at Queen Anne’s.

No doubt I'm being unfair. Smith is a brilliant (if largely forgotten) author, not in the same class as Blyton at all. And this was an entertaining book, even if I could see all the developments coming from a mile off. Perhaps my friend - who commented that it was a shame I'd started the genre with the best authors (Joanna Lloyd, Antonia Forest, Evelyn Smith), as some of the more well-known series would be spoiled for me - was right. Or perhaps I'm just not meant to be a fan, despite my recent "Blyton Project." Still, I'll undoubtedly keep reading - the series is bound to improve, no...? show less

Note: This review covers all six Malory Towers books.

I think many child readers who grew up in the UK 40 or 50 years ago had a yen to go to boarding school, based on the numerous series that were popular in the UK at that time. I happened to discover Enid Blyton's Malory Towers series, written between 1947 and 1951, when I was around 7 or 8, and I loved them from the beginning. Partly this was due to the setting - a castle-like building complex on a stormy coastal hilltop in Cornwall, the southernmost region of the British Isles, where I lived for a time and the Celtic land that has been my family's homeland for many centuries. Aside from my personal investment in the country in which it was set, the Towers themselves were terribly show more romantic looking, in that wind-swept, storm-off-the-shores kind of way! Part of my fondness for Blyton's series was simply the idea of boarding school as a place where young girls not only learned, but bonded and grew and developed a strong character, healthy body, creative mind and compassion for others - at least, that's how the stories in these books always seemed to turn out.

As is standard with this genre, there is a core of recurrent characters - Darrell, our straightforward but somewhat tempestuous heroine, Sally her steady best friend, Alicia the smart but sometimes callous one, and so on. Each year brings a certain number of new characters into the school, some of whom stay on into the later books and some who do not. There's always at least one transgressor who Learns A Lesson, and there's always at least one moral drawn for all the girls from that experience. There's a certain amount of social consciousness in the sense that some girls at the school are poor, some are not, and that class difference is shown to be not a "real" difference at all (pretty heady stuff in late 1940s Britain's children's fiction!), but most of the dilemmas have to do with the sin of "disobeying the rules of the school," with dire consequences, although not too dire. It's all very innocent and the children are all quite "improved" by their stay (except for Gwendolyn, and even she is redeemed in the end!).

Enid Blyton is known for several other series that she wrote, including other school series, but this is the one that reached my heart as a young child, and it's still the series that, at 48 years old and counting, I turn to whenever I have a cold and need something to cheer me up. I believe these books are all long out of print now, but if you enjoy boarding school fiction from a time before Harry Potter, this is worth a search in the more obscure realms of the Internet library! show less

I loved this book as a teenager and read it many times, along with the others in the series. Dipping into it now, for the first time in about thirty years, I was surprised at how much I liked it. The writing is basic, and some of the characters stereotyped - can anyone really be as awful as the spoilt, spiteful Gwendoline? - but Darrell, the heroine, is realistic: honest, kind, and yet she has a terrible temper when roused.

While I recalled the overall story, such as it is, I had forgotten almost all the detail, and found a couple of scenes surprisingly moving.

Recommended to children (mostly girls) of about eight and upwards, and to adults like me who remember these books with nostalgia. Reprinted many times.

Longer review here: show more target="_top">https://suesbookreviews.blogspot.com/2026/05/first-term-at-malory-towers-by-enid... show less

As a boy, when I became an Enid Blyton fan, the books from her I saw around were The Famous Five, of course, the Adventure series, the Secret Seven and the girl boarding school books. I loved the Famous Five and the Adventure books, the Secret Seven seemed to me too childish at that age (I was just graduating out of the Happy Hollisters, my first literary love, and I wanted stories for bigger boys), and the boarding school books, with their girlish covers, seemed to me unsuitable for my boyish dignity and interests. It seemed to me they would be full of girls playing girl games, which I wasn't interested in, and anyway, imagine the shame if someone saw me reading those! ;)

The joke's on me, because I would have enjoyed them if I had show more given them a chance. I enjoy old boarding school stories, like the ones by Talbot Baines Reed, with their themes of friendship, loyalty, fitting in, rivalries, sports... And these seems like the same. Really, girls and boys were not as different as I imagined as a kid. Darrell Rivers is a likable protagonist to follow, eager and friendly. show less

A classic among boarding school books. Malory Towers is a beautiful school located in Cornwall, with an open-air swimming pool fed by the sea, and a building that looks like a castle, with four towers that face north, south, east, and west. In this book we follow Darrell Rivers as she navigates her first term at the school, making friends, studying new subjects and getting into mischief. I read some of the series as a kid (along with the St. Clares series), and reading this one was exactly like being a kid again. But there are lessons for grownups too: if you’ve made a mistake, be forthright about apologizing and don’t make excuses, and people will respect you for it. And your friends have more of an influence on you than you might show more think! show less