St. Clare's Continuation Books

[Moose]

The third one I think you mean. It doesn't sit well with me either though I thought the whole Janet/Carlotta rivalry over the headgirlship was well done

[Wolfgang]

Well, I can say I have to live with far more "non canon" St Clare's books. When I started reading them, there were fifteen St Clare's books available in Germany. Some years later four more books were added, then they added the two available Cox' books, soon after that Sarah Boose wrote one St Clare's book (she also wrote 26 FF continuation novels so far), then there was pause again before there were several more St Clare's books written.
So far 32 novels plus 2 film books are available.
To add to the confusion, Europa (Sony) also started to do continuation stories of their own (like they do with the Famous Five), so far 38 audioplays or so are available, of which only 20 or 21 are also available as books.
While at first the books had the right running order (the first 6 written by Enid Blyton), after several editions they gave them a new running order to fit the continuation stories into the line, but non the less there's a severe flaw in it.
In the meantime a third Cox book has been published, but not in Germany so far. As far as I know it was offered to "Schneiderbuch" that's publishing the St Clare's books, but was declined, I suppose due to the fact that they had started a new set of them then. Those five books based on each other, so "Kitty at St Clare's" wouldn't have fitted.

[OhIsay]

I eagerly bought a couple of Pam Cox follow ups in the St Clares series (3rd and 6th form), out of sheer curiosity, and didn't like them at all. The writing style and even the pupils names and language are nothing like Enids (and why should it be when Enid didn't write them?) They don't capture that convincing 40/50s period effectively enough, although it is painfully obvious she has tried hard to do just that. But I can't 'feel' it. To me, the stories seemed unimaginitive, unconvincing for the characters and even repetitive in parts, with lines clearly stolen from the originals to re-create that Enid Blyton look and feel. I would never re-read these Cox additions again and had re-read the originals again many times since buying them. Furthermore, I have no intention of buying the others because I think I will be just as disappointed. My antipathy toward the two Cox books that I have read might well be based on having spent so many years with just the originals and having to fill in the gaps in the missing years and terms myself. But if you have read the enitre series, to include both writers versions, it may not seem to noticeable or so bad. But as a writer myself (non fiction, I hasten to add. I could never write fiction because I don't have the imagination to 'story tell') I can't understand why anyone would choose to be a writer's equivalent of a tribute band. Nevertheless, I can quite see why many Enid fans might disagree with me and appreciate her very laudible efforts to try to plug those essential gaps in the missing terms and years that Enid did not cover.

But not me....

[OhIsay]

i think that's just wrong-if those people writing these sequels, and equally their publisher too, think they won't get enough attraction they should firstly reconsider writing and secondly publishing these works. I think it is a false claim to fame "borrowing" other people's ideas. I haven't read any of the sequels but i must say i have scanned them in the shop and they are not attractive enough for me to consider buying them because for example the back of the 'third form' book has Isabel 'musing' which is not a Blyton term and Carlotta is 'her friend'. I think it is unimaginative and silly. I am sure Blyton would not pleased to see what people are doing to her books but the same could be said of all these budding scholars interpreting books written from a long time agao, dating back to Shakespeare as I find people have a need to discuss, criticise and in this case re-write, or write sequels to series of books that are not necessary. Enid Blyton did not intend to write about the third and sixth form and it should be left that way. If people want to write, they should start something new.
Issy

Couldn't agree more. I have two of the St Clare's follow ups (3rd and 6th form) and didn't like them at all. I have no plans to buy the rest.

I've merged two old threads on the same topic. - Anita

[Poppy]

I too, was disappointed with the St Clares continuation books, and have no intention of re-reading them. You can just tell they are not written by the same author by some of the words that crop up now and again. If you were going to write a sequel of a book, personally I would take a lot more time to look into the style of language and the era the book was written in. Some of the characters, too had changed quite 'dramatically' which plainly displayed the fact that the book wasn't written by the original author.

[Wolfgang]

Today I received two new St Clare's continuation books by the same publisher, and things become absolutely absurd. One book is based on the regular series created by Blyton, the other one is a continuation novel of the settings created by the three German films.

[Wolfgang]

Today arrived the newest German continuation novel. According to the name it's a man who has written this sequel.

[Paul Austin]

Yeah i found the same problems with the MT sequels. Jo Jones got a redemption... shame it was by becoming a completely different character.

[Rob Houghton]

I only have one St Clare's continuation novel, and one Malory Towers - but haven't read either of them and have no interest in doing so. Despite having written a Find Outer mystery in our serial section the this website, and maybe having another in the pipeline shortly, I dislike continuation books, even though those I've read on here are very, very well written, and I've enjoyed them, I still want my Blyton books to be written by Blyton!

[Anita Bensoussane]

Despite having written a Find Outer mystery in our serial section the this website, and maybe having another in the pipeline shortly...

Ooh - I hope the "maybe" will become a "definitely"!

[Irene Malory Towers]

I finally caved in and bought for the first time 2 continuation books - the 2 "missing" St Clare's one - year 3 and year 6 - really out of curiosity. I was disappointed and won't be buying any more. They were so obviously not Enid Blyton originals and I felt so poor I don't really know where to begin. The idea of Carlotta being head girl was ridiculous, not so much for Janet - who is more like a washed out Alicia in MT. There seem to be quite a lot of ideas stolen from EB novels - and I know that often happens but there were too many in both books eg the play in year 3 is similar to the pantomime in the 5th MT (but not as good). And the new characters were mostly not believable. Thank goodness I only bought 2. I certainly won't buy any of the MT continuation novels. The MT series was much better than the St Clare's anyway and ended on such a high and emotional note that it should not be tampered with.

[Anita Bensoussane]

I must admit I quite like Pamela Cox's Third Form and Sixth Form St. Clare's books, though Kitty is only so-so in my opinion (overdone Irishisms and improbable photography!) I haven't read all of her Malory Towers titles yet.

Anne Digby's Naughtiest Girl add-ons are poor by comparison. The stories are weak and thinly-plotted, the language doesn't feel Blytonian and they fail to capture the ambience of Whyteleafe.

[Fiona1986]

I've found the Naughtiest Girl and Malory Towers continuations very poor so far and I've read 2-3 of each.

[timv]

I haven't read the St Clare's continuations, but it sounds as though they had the same problem as I found when I looked through most of the Malory Towers ones - reusing old plots of Enid's from other series with a slightly different twist. There was some of that in the MT books featuring Felicity and co, too, such as the prickly and stand-offish new girl who is assumed to be the culprit for a series of minor crimes (cf Ellen in Second Term at MT), the bossy 'leader' of a form drama/ music production who is over-critical to her team and causes people to go on strike (cf Moira in the Fifth Form MT book), and yet more petty thieving. The characters were however I think fairly believable in the MT continuations, both as how Felicity, June and Susan could have turned out and the new, introduced ones - eg Bonnie, Amy, Gillian and Millicent. It was also nice to see new themes brought in, eg the perennial fake 'ghost' appearances (organised by June, naturally) and the family problems of some of the girls; I would rate books 1 (New Term), 3 (Winter Term), and 4 (Fun and Games) as reasonably good but 6 (the one with Gwen) rather poor.

The weakest bits were the 'shoehorning' in members of Darrell's group and former members of Felicity's form, especially Gwen and Jo Jones, to bring what is now called 'closure' to their past mistakes and problems fitting in at MT, which I think was done by stretching credulity too far, at least in Gwen's case. Gwen trying out teaching - really?? This is a perennial problem for fanfic - bringing in well-known characters but having them acting within the limits of their personalities and circumstances as set by their original creators. It would be interesting to know if there was any editorial pressure to do this sort of thing, as adding 'established stars' to the cast, or if it was a decision of the continuity series authors. I would guess that one problem for the new St Clare's book covering the Third Year was that any new characters would have to be 'written out' at the end, as they would not be appearing in the 'next year at the school' as Enid had written about this already; this problem also hit Elsie J Oxenham/ Dunkerley in her 'Abbey' series in the 1950s when she went back chronologically to fit in new books and storylines between books that she had already written. She solved it by making her 'fill-in' (teenage and early adult) stars talented actors and musicians and packing them off to the US to pursue their careers at the end of the fill-ins!

[Anita Bensoussane]

I would rate books 1 (New Term), 3 (Winter Term), and 4 (Fun and Games) as reasonably good but 6 (the one with Gwen) rather poor.

It's always interesting when people share their ratings of titles from a series. Although I read Pamela Cox's St. Clare's books at my leisure, I've only read quite rapidly through a couple of her Malory Towers add-ons - and even that was years ago now. I intend to read them all at some point and will bear your assessment in mind while doing so, Tim.