A Popular Schoolgirl

Ingred Saxon grew up in luxury in Rotherwood, a large house in southern England, and is looking forwards to moving back in after its wartime usage as a Red Cross hospital. Unfortunately for her, her family is weathering unforeseen financial troubles, and has had to let it out to a different family while they cram into their dramatically smaller bungalow. Even more unfortunately, the popular new girl at Grovebury College is the new tenant, leaving Ingred to remake previous bonds she’d taken for granted. A Popular Schoolgirl is just one of nearly fifty “schoolgirl fiction” books written by Angela Brazil, and put together they sold over three million copies. As a boarder at a girls’ school herself in her youth, she successfully mined this rich seam of experience to the tune of two novels and several short stories a year. Her protagonists are ultimately believable young women, written in a way that exposes their hopes and fears at a time where possibilities for women were rapidly opening up.