St. Clare's

The St. Clare's novels are a series of six books by Enid Blyton following twins Pat and Isobel through the titular British Boarding School. A lot of the characters are very similar to those in the Malory Towers series.

The original books were written from 1941 to 1945, but recently three additions to the series have been made by Pamela Cox -- The Third Form at St. Clare's and The Sixth Form at St. Clare's in 2000, and Kitty at St. Clare's in 2007. However, they aren't particularly convincing as authentic portrayals of Fifties life.

The original books are as follows:

• The Twins at St. Clare's
• The O'Sullivan Twins
• Summer Term at St. Clare's
• Second Form at St. Clare's
• Claudine at St. Clare's
• Fifth Formers at St. Clare's

Excellent summaries and other information can be found here.

Tropes used in St. Clare's include:

• Alpha Bitch: Angela.
• Always Identical Twins: The titular twins, although they're not identical in personality and their classmates can easily tell them apart by the end of the series.
• Anachronism Stew: Some of the later releases of the books were extensively bowdlerized to try and make them more appealing to current generations - shillings to pounds, grandmother to grannies and so on. Particularly Egregious are the more modern illustrations - the '90s versions of the books find the girls drinking from plastic lemonade bottles and wearing baggy T-shirts and Rachel haircuts, while others have them wearing shorts instead of hockey skirts and so on. Carlotta threatening to slap Angela has also been edited out.
• Apron Matron: The school has one of these, although when she falls sick in Claudine at St. Clare's she gets replaced with a sour woman who doesn't fit this trope at all. Luckily, she returns healthy and well again at the end of the term.
• Big Brother Worship: Ellen.
• Big Damn Heroes: Carlotta riding off to rescue Sadie, calling her circus friends to help and then getting Sadie back to school.
• Boarding School: The titular school, as well as the preparatory school (Redroofs) the twins attended before that and the posh, exclusive Ringmere School that the twins wanted to go to instead of St. Clare's.
• Bookworm
• Bowdlerize: The latest versions to be released have all been abridged in some way.
• Brainless Beauty: Angela.
• Broken Pedestal: Alison for Ms Quentin after she overhears her teacher talking about her and hears Ms Quentin describe her as akin to a little pet dog, and then learns that Ms Quentin doesn't think she has much acting talent at all and that the role she wanted is going to someone else.
• British Accents
• British Weather
• Burning Building Rescue: Margery rescues Erica in a literal example, sadly involving no superpowers. It was a boarding school cliche by this point.
• Catch Your Death of Cold: Mary-Lou and Daphne after getting caught out in a storm.
• Catholic School Girls Rule: Well, they're not Catholic. But they go to a boarding school and wear their uniform all the time.
• Chaste Teens: Somewhat enforced, as they're in a single-sex upper-class British Boarding School.
  • Almost leads to scandal when Angela learns that Ellen has been meeting with a boy outside the grounds, until Angela learns that he's actually Ellen's out-of-work brother.
• Cheaters Never Prosper: In one book, Isobel accidentally comes across the answers to a prescribed test and ends up reading them. She ends up wracked by guilt, but it turns out the test was actually for another class, so she was fine (but she ended up being so relieved she screwed up some of the questions.)
• Clingy Jealous Girl: Angela's many "admirers" in Fifth Formers at St. Clare's
• Circus Brat: Carlotta
• Class Clown: Doris
• Drunk with Power: Angela exploits her fifth-form privileges to have first-formers do chores for her, something which is discussed and disapproved of a lot by the other characters..

"Angela sends for the young ones far too much, though," said Pat, frowning. "She and Alison make them do too many jobs. They've got a bit of power and they are using it badly."
...
Hilary knew that Antoinette was being very naughty about coming when she was sent for - but she knew too that Angela used the younger girls far too much. She used her prettiness and charm to make them into little slaves.
...
Angela gets told off for it, but it doesn't seem to help: "You're not given power to play about with and get pleasure from, Angela, as you seem to think. You're given it to use in the right way."

• • And then there's Mirabel. She gets a bit of this after becoming sports captain, working the younger girls way too hard and forcing them to attend constant practices, until they eventually get sick enough of her to literally go on strike and it's only Mary-Lou's advice that stops her resigning completely.

Mirabel was tasting power for the first time as a sports captain...

• Establishing Character Moment
• Even the Girls Want Her: Angela. Even the characters without outright Les Yay for her and who recognise her shallow and often nasty nature think Angela's so beautiful she looks like a literal angel, especially her friend Alison (although she tones the open devotion down after a book or so).
• Fat Girl: The unfortunately named Alma Pudden, who it turns out actually has a form of eating disorder.
• Fear of Thunder: Several girls turn out to have this at the culmination of an outdoor midnight feast spoiled by rain.
• Female Gaze: A few mild lesbian examples.

[Jane] wished she could dislike Angela, but she couldn't. Every time she saw the golden-haired girl with her starry eyes set in her oval face she thought how wonderful she was.

• Food Porn: All those midnight feasts!
• Funny Foreigner: Several characters. Mam'zelle, the French mistress; Claudine, her niece, who comes to the school in Claudine at St. Clare's; Sadie, the American girl, and to some degree, Carlotta, who has ambiguously "gypsy" or Spanish background and knew another language, all in ways so stereotypical as to be borderline racist.
  • Averted slightly with Claudine, though -- she gradually drops the accent and has her English improve during her time at the school (unlike Mam'zelle), and on first meeting her the girls are surprised to hear her using Americanisms ("that is very okay").
• Good Is Not Dumb: Pat, Isobel and Hilary, for a start.
• Green-Eyed Monster: Jane Teal and Violet Hill have serious romantic rivalry over Angela. Angela in turn gets jealous of their affections for Mirabel.
• Gym Class Rope Climb: This trope gets a positive portrayal as the girls are awed by Carlotta's ability to swarm up the rope.
• Hair of Gold: Angela.
• Have a Gay Old Time: The blurb for the Dragon edition of Fifth Formers at St. Clare's says that for "Antoinette...The final straw was having to fag for Angela." In this context, it refers to performing menial tasks for an older girl. There's also plenty of use of "queer" to mean "strange".
  • Not forgetting a sixth-form girl's reaction to finding out the twins don't know how to make a fire or clean boots in the original text first book - "Goodness gracious, Pam, did you ever see such a pair of boobs?" Unsurprisingly, this was changed in later editions.
• Hero Worshipper: Many younger girls (first and second form) towards older girls (fifth and sixth forms) and some students towards some teachers.
• Hot for Teacher: Alison for Miss Quentin, and later Alison and Anne-Marie for Miss Willcox.
• Huge Schoolgirl: Mirabel.
• I Just Want to Be You: Anne-Marie and Miss Willcox. Miss-Willcox is a successful and gifted poet. Anne-Marie is a wannabe poet with very little actual talent. You can see where this is going.
• Innocent Crush: Forties interpretation of the oodles of subtext.
• Irritation Is the Sincerest Form of Flattery: Alision with first Miss Quentin and then Miss Willcox, and Anne-Marie for Miss Willcox as well. They get mocked by the other girls and called "Deirdre-fans" (after Miss Willcox's first name although it's actually the far less exotic Doris due to the fact they start dressing like her and imitating her (rather unusual) voice and mannerisms.
• Make Way for the Princess: Angela
• Mock Millionaire: Pauline, who is really from a poor family who scraped and saved to send her to school but pretends she's from an incredibly rich one, going so far as to keep a photo out of a magazine by her bed and pretending the rich people in it are her parents and telling her real mother there's been an outbreak of scarlet fever at the school to stop her coming to the half-term open day and thus people discovering the truth.
• Narrative Profanity Filter: In one book, Carlotta flies into a rage and 'addressed the startled teacher with a flurry of furious words in Spanish, some of which Mam'zelle unfortunately understood'. It doesn't end well.
• New Transfer Student: At least one every book.
• Nonuniform Uniform: A school-allowed variant; the summer tunic can be made in any colour a girl chooses. Subtle differences in the quality of the cloth or how "well-made" a girl's clothes are also often pointed out as indicators of social status.
• One-Gender School
• Pool Scene: A midnight swim and picnic. And yes, if you've read Malory Towers many of the plots are shameless expys of the ones in there (or vice versa).*
• Pushy Parents: Irene's with her music exams, which eventually leads to her breaking down and having to give up music for a year.
• Raised by Grandparents
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Most teachers, especially the Head.
• Rich Bitch: Angela, Pauline.
• Romani: Carlotta
• Romantic Two-Girl Friendship: Many of the characters. Lucy and Margery, Alison and Sadie (until Spoiled Sweet Sadie returns to Eagle Land), Alison and Angela, Mirabel and Gladys, Bobby and Janet, Hilary and Carlotta, Doris and Pam...the list goes on.
• Schoolgirl Lesbians: YMMV. Alternate Character Interpretation, especially where Alison's concerned.
• Schoolgirl Series
• Serious Business: All kinds of sports are treated like this. Lacrosse and tennis are of paramount importance, and nothing like a silly injury should stop you racing up the field to score a winning goal for the Good Old Team.
• Spicy Latina: Carlotta
• Spoiled Brat: Angela.
• Spoiled Sweet: Sadie has a bit of this, although she's more The Ditz.
• Stern Teacher
• Teacher's Pet: Most teachers disapprove of this sort of behaviour, but Miss Willcox and Miss Quentin actively encourage it for Alison and Anne-Marie, and Mam'zelle certainly has a soft spot for her niece Claudine.
• Teen Genius: Felicity at music and Lucy Oriell at pretty much everything, especially art.
• The Ditz: Sadie.
• The Fashionista: Sadie during her short stay at the school. Angela during her entire time at it. Alison attempts this but has less success as she's not as rich as either of them.
• The Quiet One: Daphne.
• Thunder Equals Downpour
• Twin Switch: Pat and Isobel try this to get around one of them being punished by being forbidden to go into town.
• Tyrant Takes the Helm: In Claudine At St. Clare's the normal kindly matron goes off sick and is replaced by a thin, bitter woman who punishes kids she doesn't like by tearing their clothes, blaming them for it, and making them miss Games to stay in and mend them.
• Unequal Pairing: Angela and the many, many first-formers that idolize her.
• Unstoppable Rage: Carlotta.
• Weather Report Narration: On occasion.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: Margery.
• When It Rains, It Pours
• Writing Lines