Elinor M. Brent-Dyer (1894-1969) is best-known for the amazing success of her 59 Chalet School stories, which have made her one of the UK's best-loved authors for girls. Originally published between 1925 and 1970, the stories are among the most popular British children's books of the twentieth century. It is a measure of Brent-Dyer's success that, 27 years after her death, around 100,000 copies are still sold annually in the modern paperback editions.
However, although her fans include thousands of adult women, until recently it was thought that Elinor M. Brent-Dyer had written only for younger readers and had never made use in fiction of her native Tyneside background. But, in 1995, the chance discovery of Jean of Storms has revealed not only a full-length adult novel, but one set in the district around South Shields, where she herself grew up. It is therefore a fascinating read, not only for Chalet fans, but for the picture it paints of the lives and loves of the young women of the time.
'Jean of Storms, which was serialised during 1930 in the Shields Gazette, is a romantic story, very much of its period. But the gifts as a story-teller that Elinor M. Brent-Dyer showed in her Chalet School books are evident here, too. In particular, her capacity to create characters, both sympathetic and otherwise, who immediately involve the reader and keep the pages turning to the end.' - Helen McClelland, Biographer
Cover photograph courtesy of the English Folk Dance & Song Society
Genre: Historical Romance
However, although her fans include thousands of adult women, until recently it was thought that Elinor M. Brent-Dyer had written only for younger readers and had never made use in fiction of her native Tyneside background. But, in 1995, the chance discovery of Jean of Storms has revealed not only a full-length adult novel, but one set in the district around South Shields, where she herself grew up. It is therefore a fascinating read, not only for Chalet fans, but for the picture it paints of the lives and loves of the young women of the time.
'Jean of Storms, which was serialised during 1930 in the Shields Gazette, is a romantic story, very much of its period. But the gifts as a story-teller that Elinor M. Brent-Dyer showed in her Chalet School books are evident here, too. In particular, her capacity to create characters, both sympathetic and otherwise, who immediately involve the reader and keep the pages turning to the end.' - Helen McClelland, Biographer
Cover photograph courtesy of the English Folk Dance & Song Society
Genre: Historical Romance
Used availability for Elinor M Brent-Dyer's Jean of Storms