Such larks!

I have just completed a jigsaw called High Jinks. Now, before you get any ideas, it is a very sedate picture of bookshelves full of books written in the late 19^th and early 20^th century about and (presumably) for English girls. I don’t think boys read books about girls then and maybe they don’t now. The titles alone are intriguing. I don’t know if these books would tell you much about the way girls actually behaved, but they’d certainly provide a fascinating glimpse into the accepted virtues of the time. I wonder if they’re all morality tales, where the dishonest and the lazy always get their comeuppance and become reformed characters, or if the heroines are allowed to hang onto a few of their more interesting faults.

I found myself wishing that I actually had access to these bookshelves. Some of the books would no doubt be dreary stories of how the girls come to see the error of their ways and dwindle into insipid womanhood, but I do hope that some of them are subversive. “The Worst Girl in the School”, although full of promise, is probably one of the dreary ones and “Little Miss Sunshine” looks really nauseating, although you never know. “The Abbey Girls Go Back to School” has a picture of them on a motorbike, complete with sidecar (no helmets), and who wouldn’t want to go back to school riding in such style?

Then there is “A Courageous Girl: A Story of Uruguay”, a wonderful looking book with a girl galloping powerfully across the cover, hair and cape both billowing in the wind.  I gather that the heroine returns home to Uruguay after years spent at an English boarding school only to discover that her father has been forced to sell their lovely home and take a lowly job bossing shepherds about. It was written by Bessie Marchant, who was married to a Baptist minister and wrote heaps of books based in exotic locations across the globe, despite never having left England. I am particularly drawn to the one about the girl who gets caught up in the Russian revolution (as you do) and discovers that she has a talent for teaching local people about responsible government. That went well, didn’t it?

I have to say that Enid Blyton is looking very tame by comparison. I just don’t think she was trying hard enough. When the Famous Five set off to find a treasure island, they only got as far as the Cornish coast. Why didn’t they expand their horizons and aim for somewhere more exciting? I bet the Aboriginal people of Tasmania would have welcomed four children and a dog, all keen to teach them about responsible government. Enid Blyton was definitely missing a trick there.

I think I need to put that jigsaw back in its box and return it to its rightful owner before I start googling PhD dissertations on early 20^th century books for girls. Some people will do anything to avoid painting the spare room.