A World of Girls, by L.T. Meade

I suspect that A World of Girls was one of L.T. Meade’s most popular books, because it’s the one that shows up most frequently on the title pages of her other books — you know: “by Mrs. L.T. Meade, author of A World of Girls, A Sweet Girl Graduate, etc.” — and that’s kind of why I hadn’t read it until now.

But if it was one of her most popular, there’s a reason: it’s pretty good. I kind of love L.T. Meade’s school stories. They’re from a generation or so before the classic English school stories by people like Angela Brazil or, later, Enid Blyton, so the school environment is completely different, with fewer students, a less formal atmosphere, and different kinds of activities. In A World of Girls, the big school playroom is lined with little partitions diivided from the rest of the room by railings and curtains, and older girls who are very good get their own partitions to furnish as they like and invite other girls to drink tea in.

The Lady of the Forest

The Lady of the Forest, by L.T. Meade, is another recent acquisition, and one of the most crazily convoluted books I’ve ever read. It’s so confusing that you need a family tree to understand it. The author didn’t include one, though, so I’ve had to make up the deficiency myself.

A Sweet Girl Graduate

L.T. Meade is a favorite of mine. She wrote a couple of hundred books, mostly for girls, in the late 19th century.

The first L.T. Meade book I read was A Sweet Girl Graduate. Obviously I couldn’t resist a title like that.