Why didn’t Enid write more St Clare’s or Malory Towers?

[Paul Greaves]

Apologies if this question has come up before and been answered - but I’m curious.
With St Clare’s it’s surprising she missed out the Third Year and Sixth Form. And given how popular both series were I’d have expected a few more of each.

Is there an answer to this, or is it one of those mysteries even The Five couldn’t solve?

[Blytonfan]

Apart from the logical 6 books per series I have always wondered about that too. The books by Pamela Cox aren't quite the same thing.

[GloomyGraham]

It seemed like a plan. Unlike some other series where she would just keep going, I feel she decided when she started writing these books that 6 was the right number,

I wish she had done the same for some other series - eg there should have been one more '6 Cousins' book,

[Anita Bensoussane]

Maybe the publishers said, "By the way, we think six of these will be enough." If they said that when Enid Blyton was already partway through the St. Clare's series, that might explain why some school years are missed out altogether.

[Irene Malory Towers]

The Malory Towers one is obvious - she finished on the final term - and in my opinion it is by far the better series. Not sure with St Clare's - it was far more basic in its plots and character development but the last 2 books were the best (again in my opinion). She left the final book with a good satisfying ending - the twins being joint heads. I feel that it had gone as far as it could though in terms of character development, the weaker ones like Mirabelle, Angela, Alison and even Claudine had learnt their lessons. The "better" characters like the twins and Janet and Bobby and Pam were not well developed compared to the Malory Towers ones so there was nothing more to add. I feel that both of these series were the right length as otherwise you end up just rehashing old plots and most of her longer series like the Famous Five, Secret Seven and even the Five Findouters did not end well but sort of petered out. Better to end on a high - like these did. Re the cousins - again 2 were enough as Rose had made that somewhat miraculous and unbelievable transformation so what more could be added. Some of the shorter series if they can be called series were better than the longer ones because they didn't rehash old ideas or becoming inconsistent with the previous plots and character developments.. I recently reread in the 5th at St Clare's and I love the night scene with Mademoiselle catching all these burglars and finding that none of them were genuine burglars.

[Blytonfan]

Although Malory Towers maybe better developed, I personally prefer the St. Clare's series.

The first book has an overwhelming series of incidents, and we can see these ideas get more fleshed out, albeit in different settings over the course of the books. I loved the sneaking out to see the Circus bit.

And absolutely agree the "pad pad pad" of Mamzelle in the Fifth is a scene stealer.

[Debbie]

Malory Towers is one book per year. I think more books would have diminished the series, and ended up being repetitive. There's only so many times they can play a joke on Mademoiselle, Irene lose her certificate, etc. By having one book per year it feels plausible.
The end bit where they make the younger girls promise to carry on the tradition is lovely.

St Clare's is less obvious, and they're oddly done, because you have the first three terms, then second year, fourth year and fifth form. So much more dotted about. I may be wrong, but I think we get more of the twins' home life than we do Darrell's.
Not having the sixth form does make the series feel unfinished, but actually I'm glad they didn't try to do the twins as head girl. I really didn't like the way they made them both head girls. Pat was clearly the leader all through the series, so making out they can't choose between them felt false.
Plus you have the form discussing it and each twin says they wouldn't accept it because it wasn't fair on the other one.
Even as a child I felt equally well that it wasn't fair on them to feel that they couldn't be head girl because they were a twin. And surely if they loved their twin so much then what they'd actually be saying is "I'd be thrilled if <other twin> is head girl, and no way would I want them to refuse because of me. I'd be proud of them". To me it made them seem selfish.

[Wolfgang]

Actually there are 39 (St Clare's books + some books based on the films + about 55 audiobooks not based on novels available - all playing during school time of the twins.

[Nair Snehalatha]

I always wonder why Enid Blyton did not write-- Sixth Formers of St Clares? With the O sullivan twins as joint headgirls-- It would have.rounded off the series then

[Anita Bensoussane]

Pamela Cox's The Sixth Form at St Clare's is an enjoyable read, though it's not the same as having a proper Enid Blyton book. Maybe the publishers made the decision that six books was enough?

[Nair Snehalatha]

There's no one to substitute for Enid Blyton-- she's truly a unique phenomenon