Saint Clare Prehistory, Part One – In which The Luggage steals my sources

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This post will (hopefully) evolve. It’s intended to be a living bibliography of boarding school books, stitched together while my brick-red school trunk goes off into an alternative universe to have adventures without me… because every great school story begins with a missing kit and misplaced books.

There are still several days of Oasis Party posts (first and second) waiting in the wings, and more than a few Inez entries stranded halfway through editing. In theory, finishing those should have my full attention for this Friday morning’s blogging. In practice, however, my AuDHD brain—already juggling post-COVID fog, the occasional energy crash, ridiculous Southern California late-summer humidity and heat, unanswered emails, and an overwhelming number of personal and professional to-do lists—has staged a coup. It looked at the careful queue of half-finished projects, waved politely, and declared: what we really need right now is to get a boarding school bibliography posted.

Q: I’ve collected articles & books about boarding schools since I was 7. Anyone interested in reading lists or a public Zotero library?

Zotero https://t.co/QXK4H2TF80 Citation software used mostly by academics to organize research. Zotero’s open source.

— Mija (@eltercerojo) August 13, 2025

And so here we are.

I’ve been meaning for ages to pull together a proper list of books and studies—especially those centered on British girls’ schools. Partly as a research tool, part a nostalgia trip, and, of course, partly an excuse for muttering, “Can you believe this was actually published… for children!?” As a research resource, it’s also slowly taking shape in Zotero, where I no longer have to depend on memory (unreliable), BBEdit, my favorite writing space, on random pages of notebooks, or on the chaotic space that I call my desk.

The final push to get this up this week came courtesy of FedEx, who misplaced my brick-red school trunk¹Away Flex luggage, large—28 inches tall, 50 pounds heavy, and packed with both books and uniform kit.²Remember my tales of overpacking? At first I despaired. Then I realised: this isn’t lost luggage. This is The Luggage. It has clearly stomped off on hundreds of little legs to seek my alternate-reality schoolgirl self, and together they are no doubt engaged in improbable midnight feasts, perilous lacrosse matches, and the occasional showdown with eldritch prefects. Several of the titles below are inside it, though the bibliography itself ranges far beyond the missing five.

So here it is: a living list of books, articles, and curiosities on boarding schools.³For a number of reasons I’m not going to write about the horror of the native boarding schools in the United States and Canada. If you need sources on those, let me know and I’ll email you. But this isn’t the space where those belong. Consider it both a reference and a roll-call—part catalogue, part lament, and perhaps a beacon to lure The Luggage back, once it’s had its fill of adventures.

Boarding School Bibliography:

Books:
Darwin, Erasmus. A Plan for the Conduct of Female Education, in Boarding Schools. Gale and the British Library, 1797.

Davidson, Alexander. Blazers, Badges & Boaters: A Pictorial History of School Uniform. Scope Books, 1990.

Foster, Hannah Webster. The Coquette and the Boarding School: Or, Lessons of a Preceptress to Her Pupils; Consisting of Information, Instruction, and Advice, Calculated to Improve the Manners, and Form the Character of Young Ladies. To which is Added, a Collection of Letters, Written by the Pupils, to Their Instructress, Their Friends, and Each Other. GP Peaslee, 1829.

Graham, Ysenda Maxtone. Terms & Conditions: Life in Girls’ Boarding Schools, 1939-1979. Hachette UK, 2017.

Haddon, Celia. Great Days & Jolly Days: The Story of Girls’ School Songs. Hodder and Stoughton UK, 1977.

Hamlett, Jane.  At Home in the Institution: Material Life in Asylums, Lodging Houses and Schools in Victorian and Edwardian England, London: Palgrave Macmillan UK, 2015.

Hayes, Remy. “Resilience and Happiness Among Adults Who Attended Boarding School: A Qualitative Study.” PhD diss., University of Essex, 2023.

Hughes, Thomas. Tom Brown’s School Days: Navigating life, friendship, and courage in a 19th century British boarding school. Good Press, 2019.

Mangan, Lucy. Hopscotch & Handbags: The Truth about Being a Girl. Headline Review UK, 2008.

Pitofsky, Alexander H. American Boarding School Fiction, 1928-1981: A Critical Study. McFarland, 2014.

Reynolds, Kimberley. Girls Only? Gender and Popular Children’s Fiction in Britain, 1880-1910. Harvester Wheatsheaf, London, 1990.

Rowbotham, Judith. Good Girls Make Good Wives: Guidance for Girls in Victorian Fiction, Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1989.

Stephenson, Kate. A Cultural History of School Uniform. University of Exeter Press UK, 2021.

Yurdan, Marilyn. School Songs and Gymslips: Grammar Schools in the 1950s and 1960s. The History Press UK, 2012.

Articles:
De Bellaigue, Christina. “Behind the School Walls: The School Community in French and English Boarding Schools for Girls, 1810–1867.” Paedagogica Historica 40, no. 1-2 (2004): 107-121.

Floyd, Caroline, Susan McPherson, and Penny Cavenagh. “How Does Boarding School Iinfluence Feelings of Loneliness?.” In The Psychological Impact of Boarding School, pp. 85-100. Routledge, 2023.

Foliano, Francesca, Francis Green, and Marcello Sartarelli. “Away from home, better at school. The case of a British boarding school.” Economics of Education Review 73 (2019): 101911.

Grigorovich, Lyubov A., Marina V. Kurenkova, Larisa Y Maksimova, Lyubov A Grigorovich, and Marina V Kurenkova. “Specifity of social identity of all-girls boarding school adolescents.” European Proceedings of Social and Behavioural Sciences 64 (2019).

James, Gregory. “The psychological impact of sending children away to boarding schools in Britain: Is there cause for concern?.” British Journal of Psychotherapy 39, no. 3 (2023): 592-610.

Haslett, Moyra. “‘All pent up together’: Representations of Friendship in Fictions of Girls’ Boarding‐Schools, 1680‐1800.” Journal for Eighteenth‐Century Studies 41, no. 1 (2018): 81-99.

Hayes, Remy, Frances Blumenfeld, Susan McPherson, Penny Cavenagh, and Caitlin Phillips. “Escape, autonomy, friendship and resilience: Positive experiences of British boarding school.” In The Psychological Impact of Boarding School, pp. 130-153. Routledge, 2023.

Hollowell, Clare. “Enforcing Performance: Disciplining Girls in British Co-educational Boarding School Stories, 1928–58.” International Research in Children’s Literature 1, no. 2 (2008): 125-138.

Kelsey, Penelope. “Narratives of the boarding school era from victimry to resistance.” Atenea 23 (2003): 123-37.

Mathieson, M., and M. T. Whiteside. “The secondary modern school in fiction.” British Journal of Educational Studies 19, no. 3 (1971): 283-293.

Martini, Ashton. “The evolution of boarding schools.” The Boller Review 6 (2021).

Miller, Peter J. “Women’s Education,‘Self‐Improvement’ and Social Mobility—a Late Eighteenth Century Debate.” British Journal of Educational Studies 20, no. 3 (1972): 302-314.

Miller, Nicola, and Ruth Tudor. “Beyond the Glass: Making Visible the Boarding Experience for Women.” In The Un-Making of Them, pp. 35-46. Routledge.

O’Brien, Niamh. “Boarding Schools.” The Wiley Blackwell Handbook of Bullying: A Comprehensive and International Review of Research and Intervention (2021): 467.

Okely, Judith. “Privileged, Schooled and Finished: Boarding Eduction for Girls.” In Defining Females, pp. 93-122. Routledge, 2020.

Pettengill, Claire C. “Sisterhood in a Separate Sphere: Female Friendship in Hannah Webster Foster’s” The Coquette and the Boarding School“.” Early American Literature 27, no. 3 (1992): 185-203.

Spencer, Stephanie. “Boarding School Fictions: schoolgirls’ own communities of learning.” Women’s History Review 22, no. 3 (2013): 386-402.

Rudrum, Michelle. “Loneliness and mental health among adolescent females in boarding schools.” (2020).

Schaverien, Joy. “Boarding school: the trauma of the ‘privileged’child.” Journal of Analytical Psychology 49, no. 5 (2004): 683-705.

Skorodzien, Iwona. “Boarding, psychological well-being and distress: A survey of secondary school students attending boarding schools in the UK.” PhD diss., University of Leicester, 2020.

Spencer, Stephanie. “Boarding School Fictions: schoolgirls’ own communities of learning.” Women’s History Review 22, no. 3 (2013): 386-402.

Trimingham Jack, Christine. “The Boarding School Testimony of Charlotte Brontë.” History of Education Review 51, no. 2 (2022): 200-213.

Vicinus, Martha. “Distance and Desire: English Boarding-School Friendships.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 9, no. 4 (1984): 600-622.

White, Amelia. “Good for Girls? Co-Educational Boarding Reviewed.” In The Un-Making of Them, pp. 47-57. Routledge.

Websites:

Dr Williams’ School – Dolgellau – 1878 – 1975  – Where my uniform comes from.

History of Girls’ School Stories –

Sent Away (film) –

Boarding School Fiction – Books and Authors

Authors:
Blyton, Enid (1897-1968)

Brazil, Angela (1868-1947)

Bronte, Emily (1818-1848)

Fielding, Sarah (1710-1768)

Books:
Tom Brown’s Schooldays (1857)
The Governess / Little Female Academy (1749)

• 1
  Away Flex luggage, large
• 2
  Remember my tales of overpacking?
• 3
  For a number of reasons I’m not going to write about the horror of the native boarding schools in the United States and Canada. If you need sources on those, let me know and I’ll email you. But this isn’t the space where those belong.