Chalet School
| Fandom | |
|---|---|
| Name: | Chalet School series |
| Abbreviation(s): | |
| Creator: | Elinor Brent Dyer |
| Date(s): | 1925-1970 |
| Medium: | books |
| Country of Origin: | United Kingdom |
| External Links: | |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
The Chalet School is a fictional girls' boarding school, the setting of around sixty school story novels by Elinor Brent-Dyer, initially published between 1925 and 1970. The school was initially located in Austria, moved to Guernsey in 1939, following the rise to power of the Nazi Party, then to "Plas Howell", a house on the border of England and Wales, then to the fictional island of St Briavels, off the south-west Welsh coast and finally to Switzerland.
Chalet School fandom
This article or section needs expansion. |
The Chalet School books are part of what is often referred to as a 'Girls Own' books, courtesy of the authors being featured within Girls Own Annuals or The Girl's Own Paper. The were popular from the time of their release, with fandoms of the time forming around the books as well as other school stories at the time, such as those written by Angela Brazil and Noel Streatfeild. They are widely considered to be one of the earlier forms of what would become the modern schoolgirl stories, where the books were entertaining rather than providing some form of moral instruction or guidance[1].
The Chalet School books, along with other girls school stories remained hugely popular throughout the 20th century and into the 21st century, with fan networks first starting through letter writing via annuals, newspapers, and magazines, as well as in person fan clubs such as Friends of the Chalet School, then moving online with the arrival of the internet[2]. Professional authors such as Val McDermid and Daisy May Johnson have discussed the influence of The Chalet School and other girls own stories on their own writing, with the latter writing extensively about the genre of books[3][4].
There is a bulletin board for Chalet School fans known as The CBB. Pieces of fanfiction written on this site, no matter what length, are known as drabbles.
Chalet School stories are often requested at Yuletide.
There is also a LiveJournal community for the Chalet School fandom called freudesheim and a fanfiction archive, The Sally Denny Library.
While a large number of fanworks for The Chalet School were never moved across to newer fanwork sites such as Archive of Our Own and Fanfiction.net, there are still a few hundred works combined across the two platforms, including works archived from older platforms.
Links
- The Chalet School fandom tag at Archive of Our Own
- The Chalet School works at Fanfiction.net
References
- ^ "Brown, Susan; Clements, Patricia; Grundy, Isobel, eds. (2006). "Angela Brazil entry: Overview". Orlando: Women's Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press". Archived from the original on 2014-02-19.Archived from the original on 19 February 2014. Retrieved 2 February 2014.
- ^ "The Fans of Girls School Stories: III. 1990s Girl Fans". Archived from the original on 2003-11-04.
- ^ "The Chalet School with Val McDermid, BBC iPlayer, 20 September 2011". Archived from the original on 2011-10-08.
- ^ "The Chalet School tag at Daisy May Johnson's blog 'Did You Ever Stop to Think?'". Archived from the original on 2023-06-11.