The CBB :: View topic - EBD & Other Authors

through

[^/[^Print]\]

The CBB -> Anything Else

#1: EBD & Other Authors Author: Róisín, Location: Ireland

Posted: Thu Apr 05, 2007 12:50 pm
—
I thought it would be interesting to draw up a list of things that are the same between the CS books and other authors. EBD is always in the back of my head and every time I read something else it always strikes me if a similar idea is being used, from descriptions of a girl's looks, to a protagonist having lots of twins!

If you have noted something like this before, please do post about it, and when we have discussed it to death I will do up a shiny excel sheet or something of the like.

Some examples I know of, to be starting off with.

EBD: Joey Bettany of the black eyes and black bob, was wasn't pretty in the usual sense, but was 'attractive'.
FHB: Sarah Crewe is described in a very similar way to this in A Little Princess.

EBD: Sybil's red-haired temper.
LMM: Anne's red-haired temper.

EBD: moving the school because of the drains.
EJO: moving the school because of diptheria (drains as well I think).

Edited to correct my silliness... thank you Liz! Laughing

Last edited by Róisín on Thu Apr 05, 2007 1:47 pm; edited 1 time in total

#2: Author: Liss, Location: Richmond

Posted: Thu Apr 05, 2007 1:10 pm
—
The classic: EBD and Louisa May Alcott, and their respective Jo characters.

EBD and DFB - descriptions of dormitories/cubicles etc (spesh in The Girls of St Brides)

#3: Author: Carys, Location: London

Posted: Thu Apr 05, 2007 2:18 pm
—
The Elsie Carr from the Katy Books and the CS Elsie Carr, as a child I was convinced EBD had done this on purpose.

#4: Author: Róisín, Location: Ireland

Posted: Thu Apr 05, 2007 5:24 pm
—
I haven't read all of EJO, but aren't her later books about a school in the Swiss Alps? Confused

#5: Author: LizB, Location: Oxon, England

Posted: Thu Apr 05, 2007 7:21 pm
—
Jo Bettany, Anne Shirley and Sara Crewe were all imaginative, storytelling children. Jo March also wrote, but we only see her as grown up (however much she might protest against it).

#6: Author: Mel, Location: UP NORTH

Posted: Thu Apr 05, 2007 7:28 pm
—
Joey, Anne Shirley and Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm all marry men they have known in girlhood.

#7: Author: LizB, Location: Oxon, England

Posted: Thu Apr 05, 2007 7:31 pm
—
And in Anne's case he's also a doctor *swoons over Gilbert*

#8: Author: Róisín, Location: Ireland

Posted: Thu Apr 05, 2007 7:45 pm
—
I think it would be good to compare with books that came after EBD as well, that way a chart could be split into before and after - what influenced her, then what she influenced (that's a tonguetwister!).

#9: Author: Tiffany, Location: Is this a duck I see behind me?

Posted: Thu Apr 05, 2007 8:34 pm
—

Róisín wrote:

I haven't read all of EJO, but aren't her later books about a school in the Swiss Alps? Confused

IIRC EJO did it first. There are two schools, St Mary's and St John's, whihc are set up for the children of English patients attending a sanatorium - the one Rosamund's mother goes to, if you've read that far. There are a few books set at the schools, and some of the characters from them meet the Abbey crowd eventually.

EJO is much less about school than EBD or DFB etc. Are there any other series which focus on the school, rather than on a set of characters?

#10: Author: Alison H, Location: Manchester

Posted: Thu Apr 05, 2007 8:48 pm
—
A lot of the elements of the EJO Swiss books - which precede the CS - felt similar to the early CS books to me. Most of the main characters there had relatives at the San, and the main doctor received a baronetcy (actually, it could've been a knighthood but I think it was a baronetcy). Not to mention the numerous sets of twins in the EJO books!

There are references to Alpine Sans in Lorna Hill's Return to the Wells, which came after most of the CS books - not sure if Lorna Hill'd read EBD?

#11: Author: macyrose, Location: Great White North (Canada)

Posted: Thu Apr 05, 2007 10:55 pm
—
Multiple births and baby races. EBD: Jo has two sets of twins and a set of triplets and the Russell and Bettany families also have sets of twins (as do some of the families in the La Rochelle books). Plus many non-Clan member sets of twins. EJO: Joy, Jen, Rosamund and Maidlin all have twins (Rosamund also has two sets of twins, in less than a year if I remember correctly). And Jo always has to have the biggest family while there's an actual mention in one of the rare Abbeys of someone winning that year's baby race.

#12: Author: Jennie, Location: Cambridgeshire

Posted: Fri Apr 06, 2007 12:52 pm
—
In the Maids of La Rochelle, Peter Chester calls Anne Temple 'Anne girl', just as Gilbert Blythe calls Anne Shirley.

#13: Author: Tiffany, Location: Is this a duck I see behind me?

Posted: Fri Apr 06, 2007 2:12 pm
—
EBD is similar to Terry Pratchett in that both have created a universe which is more important than the individual characters. The books are set in the school/Discworld, but there are some characters that only appear once and some that are there all the time, some that the author is clearly very fond of (Joey, Sam Vimes) and so keeps coming back to, some that don't have their potential developed for whatever reason... the setting in the thing that glues the characters, and series, together.

#14: Author: joyclark,

Posted: Sat Apr 07, 2007 2:47 pm
—
Mary Lou is fond of delicacies, fills her mouth with something that wasn't nice (a mishap in a cookery lesson), chokes and leaves the room. Amy March did the same thing when Jo Mrach salted the strawberries and the cream had gone sour. The wording, if I recall correctly, is very similar in both incidents.

#15: Author: JayB, Location: SE England

Posted: Sat Apr 07, 2007 3:10 pm
—
There are a lot of similarities between EBD's work and that of Mrs George de Horne Vaizey (1857-1915). Compare the description of the dormitory and the unpacking routine in Tom and Some Other Girls with any Swiss book, for example. Not to mention having a girl called Tom. Although I think Tom Gay has better manners than this Tom.

There's some Mrs G de H V online at http://www.athelstane.co.uk/

#16: Author: Clare, Location: Liverpool

Posted: Sat Apr 07, 2007 5:49 pm
—
In Five Get Into Trouble, Julian, Dick and Anne go to the pool first thing in the morning. Anne says she doesn't want to bathe as the water would be too cold, while Julian says "we should be used to cold water in the mornings by now." The inference being in the boarding schools the Five go to, they too must have cold baths.

#17: Author: Caty, Location: New Zealand

Posted: Sun Apr 08, 2007 2:14 pm
—
Felix & Felicity - born in Canada and LM Montgomery has twins Felix & Felicity King.

EJO's abundance of J names in early books (although this becomes a very confusing myroad of Rose names later), and the multiple births. Mind you Rosamund's 2 sets of twins in under a year is a feat even Joey never attempted! There were 4 sets of twins born in one book to main characters.

#18: Author: macyrose, Location: Great White North (Canada)

Posted: Sun Apr 08, 2007 7:25 pm
—
Caty wrote:

Quote:

Felix & Felicity - born in Canada and LM Montgomery has twins Felix & Felicity King.

Felicity King (the niece of the deceased twins Felix and Felicity) in LMM's Story Girl books also has a younger sister named Cecily as does Felicity Maynard.

We could do a theme on how much EBD borrowed or was influenced by other books and authors, this being an example. Also wasn't there a sheets-and-pillowcase party in one of the Pixie O'Shaughnessy books by Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey?

As for twins, I remember reading somewhere (EBD's biography, perhaps, or another of the books about EBD) that that was why EBD gave Jo triplets, since many storybook heroines had produced twins but no one until Jo had risen to triplets! Very Happy

#19: Author: Tara, Location: Malvern, Worcestershire

Posted: Sun Apr 08, 2007 9:27 pm
—
And Pixie herself is a clone of Biddy O'Ryan.

#20: Author: skye,

Posted: Mon Apr 09, 2007 3:39 pm
—
You could do the same with any author. Most will have influences from various sources and it still continues today with Dr Who pinching bits from JK Rowling, or Star Trek or Star Wars. It would be very difficult to come up with an entirely original idea and sustain it through almost 60 books.

#21: Author: Róisín, Location: Ireland

Posted: Mon Apr 09, 2007 10:07 pm
—

skye wrote:

You could do the same with any author. Most will have influences from various sources and it still continues today with Dr Who pinching bits from JK Rowling, or Star Trek or Star Wars. It would be very difficult to come up with an entirely original idea and sustain it through almost 60 books.

Oh absolutely you could do the same with any other author. But it hasn't been done with EBD, in any professional capacity so far, that's why it's fun for us ourselves to look into it.

#22: Author: Lisa_T, Location: Belfast

Posted: Tue Apr 10, 2007 11:15 pm
—
Biddy, Pixie and others of her ilk can in some ways be traced back to Lady Morgan's Wild Irish Girl. Not that Glorvina necessarily resembles Biddy and Co- but the idea of the 'wild Irish girl' certainly entered the school story lexicon.

When- when!- I finish my PhD, I'm going to write an article about the evolution of national stereotyping in girls' school stories in the early twentieth century, with specific reference to Ireland and Irish characters. That's assumng that (a) someone hasn't already beaten me to it and (b) somebody doesn't beat me to it! It's especially interesting if you contrast how Irish girls are portrayed by EBD and Co as opposed to the Irish girls in Kate O'Brien's The Land of Spices.

Thing is, for it to be a valid comparison in academic terms, I'd need to try and find more school stories published in Ireland for Irish girls pre 1950. That in itself could be very interesting as there'd probably be a degree of anti-British feeling (school stories were used as a method of spreading political ideas/opinions. Just look at what happens every time a strike is mentioned, and think about the time when that title -eg, Dimsie Goes to School, Gerry etc- was published)... and I've gone completely OT.

*crawls under a rock*

#23: Author: Cath V-P, Location: Newcastle NSW

Posted: Wed Apr 11, 2007 1:24 am
—
That national stereotyping is interesting isn't it? There was a definite idea of the "wild colonial girl" that numerous authors (e g. Dorothea Moore, Ethel Talbot, E L Haverfield etc) made use of, and I suppose you could include EBD's Emerence the Arsonist in that group!

#24: Author: Róisín, Location: Ireland

Posted: Wed Apr 11, 2007 9:20 am
—
Jem's middle name is Gilbert. I only know of one other Gilbert, anywhere! Laughing

ETA: and Eustacia as a name crops up in A Little Princess.

#25: Author: Hannah-Lou, Location: Glasgow

Posted: Thu Apr 12, 2007 11:24 am
—

macyrose wrote:

Felicity King (the niece of the deceased twins Felix and Felicity) in LMM's Story Girl books also has a younger sister named Cecily as does Felicity Maynard.

Isn't there a Felicity King at the CS? The vain one in Mary-Lou's class in New Mistress?

#26: Author: macyrose, Location: Great White North (Canada)

Posted: Thu Apr 12, 2007 3:07 pm
—
Hannah-Lou wrote:

Quote:

Isn't there a Felicity King at the CS?

Yes. She appears in Wrong, Bride, Geunius, New Mistress, Coming of Age, Trials and Ruey according to The A-Z of Chalet School Characters.

#27: Author: fio, Location: swansea united kingdom

Posted: Thu Apr 12, 2007 10:03 pm
—
There's also the uniform colour. Chalet School- brown and flame until the Swiss books. Enid Blytons' Malory Towers- brown coat, brown hat, orange ribbon,brown tunic and orange belt. I wonder if EB read CS and based Darrells' uniform on that so that when EBD got the chance to change it- i.e. the move- she took it so there was no resemblance to EB anymore?

#28: Author: Lisa_T, Location: Belfast

Posted: Fri Apr 13, 2007 7:24 pm
—
Do the dates pan out? I admit I noticed that too, re the uniforms, but I think I thought EBD copied EB and not vice versa, but of course EBD was writing first.

#29: Author: Tiffany, Location: Is this a duck I see behind me?

Posted: Fri Apr 13, 2007 9:00 pm
—

Róisín wrote:

Jem's middle name is Gilbert. I only know of one other Gilbert, anywhere!

One of EJO's Abbey hangers-on (Virginia, nanta Rose's sister) marries a Gilbert. He's goodlooking and rich but a bit of a twit.

#30: Author: Cath V-P, Location: Newcastle NSW

Posted: Sat Apr 14, 2007 1:41 am
—
Ideal husband material then.... Twisted Evil

#31: Author: joyclark,

Posted: Sat Apr 14, 2007 4:41 am
—

Róisín wrote:

Jem's middle name is Gilbert. I only know of one other Gilbert, anywhere! Laughing

And Gilbert's middle name was James - Gilbert James Blythe

#32: Author: Kathy_S, Location: midwestern US

Posted: Sat Apr 14, 2007 4:11 pm
—
In Elizabeth Goudge's Green Dolphin Street, we are introduced to Edmond Ozanne, who has just returned to Guernsey. The book is written in 1944, though set much earlier. Name-borrowing, or perhaps Ozanne is to Guernsey as Hughes is to Wales?

Goudge has her character being a bit more overt about some of the ideas that underlie parts of EBD -- and show just how far EBD goes in trying to subvert them:

Quote:

No one had known about those strolls on the sea wall because the two families, Edmond's and hers, had not been socially known to each other. Edmond's parents had been respectable people, of an old Island family, but they had been In Trade; the Wine Trade, which of course holds a certain cachet, but still Trade. The Ozannes and her own people, the du Putrons, had bowed to each other in the street, but no more. Well, it wold be possible to know Edmond socially now, since he had become a doctor. Doctors ranked with solicitors and clergymen as People Whom One Knew. Their profession put the hall mark of a gentleman upon them, and one closed an eye to what their parents had been. One must close this eye at some period in man's social ascent, of course; otherwise, with the birth rate of the lower orders tending to be higher than that of the upper classes, gentlemen would die out....

#33: Author: Mia, Location: London

Posted: Sat Apr 14, 2007 5:06 pm
—
Ozanne is a Guernesiaise surname I believe.

#34: Author: Pat, Location: Doncaster

Posted: Sat Apr 14, 2007 6:32 pm
—
We saw at least one business owned by an Ozanne when we were in Guernsey last year.

#35: Author: Mrs Redboots, Location: London, UK

Posted: Sun Apr 15, 2007 3:16 pm
—
Rather the other way round, but it occurred to me while writing my current drabble that Kay Marlow follows the example of many of the Chalet girls by marrying a man much older than herself.

#36: Author: Kathy_S, Location: midwestern US

Posted: Sat Apr 21, 2007 6:17 am
—
In EJO, Camp Mystery, 1932, Cecile/Cecily, like Biddy O'Ryan, is adopted by the Guides. At least Biddy (CS and Jo, 1931) stays in the same country after the "adoption." Cecily is going to be carted from France to England, with no identity papers whatsoever.

There must have been something in the air in the early 30s. In The Mysterious Camper (1933), the Girl Scouts also come home with an orphan. However, they promptly find her a guardian and accept her as a full-fledged member of the troop, not to mention spending the whole next volume hunting for her grandmother.... Somehow I find this version more realistic. Smile

The CBB -> Anything Else

output generated using printer-friendly topic mod. All times are GMT

Page 1 of 1