Carol Ann Pearce & St. Kelvern’s

Summer Term Blackie 1951, illustrated by W Spence
We’re in the Sixth! Children’s Press 1960
St. Kelvern’s Launches Out Children’s Press 1962

According to The Encyclopaedia of Girls’ School Stories, little is known about Carol Ann Pearce, author of the three St. Kelvern’s stories. Since her death in 2006, her son and daughter-in-law have set up a website here. This gives information about the published works, but no personal biography.

I’d read the Children’s Press books years ago and found them entertaining. Then I discovered that there was another book, the first in the series. Unfortunately, Summer Term is very hard to find. At last a copy came up on abe (‘abe has found the book you want’ and for once they really had) and I was able to read it, after a twenty year search. As you can see from the scan, it’s a very nice copy, much better than I expected from the seller’s unhelpful description. By the way, this was not one of my bargain wonders; I paid real money for it.

The three books follow the school careers of four friends from their fifth year at St. Kelvern’s Bury School to the time when they are planning their futures. Elizabeth is efficient, reliable, good at art and acting. Netta, impulsive and noisy, excels at games. Kate is very musical. Dreamy Len (Helen) wants to write but doesn’t take enough interest in anything else. I love descriptions of cosy studies at a boarding school and as the four girls share a study throughout the series, there’s plenty to please me. After reading Summer Term for the first time I re-read the other two. I was surprised to find that I much preferred the first one. I think this has little to do with the author’s talent and everything to do with changes in publishing at the time. From the 1950s far fewer school stories were published. For example, OUP had published many school stories before the war, including the Dimsie series, but in the fifties they rejected them completely. When you think that their 1950s list included the now classic titles The Eagle of the Ninth, A Swarm in May and Tom’s Midnight Garden, it’s perhaps not surprising. My point is that Blackie gave Carol Pearce more scope to write something good than The Children’s Press did.
( the series )