History Literature / StClares

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/st_clares.png]]
[[caption-width-right:350:The series (including the Pamela Cox additions.)]]

* BreakTheCutie: Lucy in ''The O’Sullivan Twins''. Lucy is super-smart and kind to everyone, even people who have been major assholes. Then near the end of the book, [[spoiler: her painter dad loses the use of his hand in a car accident so he can’t paint anymore. The family are now poor and can’t afford to send Lucy to school anymore. Fortunately, she’s able to earn a scholarship and stay at St Clare’s.]]

* BreakTheCutie: Lucy in ‘’The O’Sullivan Twins’’. Lucy is super-smart and kind to everyone, even people who have been major assholes. Then near the end of the book, [[spoiler: her painter dad loses the use of his hand in a car accident so he can’t paint anymore. The family are now poor and can’t afford to send Lucy to school anymore. Fortunately, she’s able to earn a scholarship and stay at St Clare’s.]]

* AmbiguouslyBrown: Carlotta. She is described as "dark like a gypsy", but it is never really confirmed that she is one.

* CatholicSchoolGirlsRule: Well, they're not Catholic. But they go to a boarding school and wear their uniform all the time.

* ClingyJealousGirl: Angela's many "admirers" in ''Fifth Formers at St Clare's''

** In fairness, Elsie (whose character is “the spiteful one”) was the ringleader of the latter. Several of the girls expressed misgivings about it, but Elsie was like “I’m the head girl so you have to do what I say” and the girls reluctantly went along with it after that. Hilary even tried to convince Elsie to stop, but Elsie refused.

** In fairness, Elsie (whose character is “the spiteful one”) was the ringleader of the latter. Several of the girls expressed misgivings about it, but Elsie was like “I’m the head girl so you have to do what I say” and the girls reluctantly went along with it after that.

** In fairness, Elsie was the ringleader of the latter. Several of the girls expressed misgivings about it, but Elsie was like “I’m the head girl so you have to do what I say” and the girls reluctantly went along with it after that.

The original books were written from 1941 to 1945, but recently [[OutlivedItsCreator three additions to the series]] have been made by Pamela Cox - ''The Third Form at St. Clare's'' and ''The Sixth Form at St. Clare's'' in 2000, and ''Kitty at St. Clare's'' in 2007. However, they aren't particularly convincing as authentic portrayals of Forties life. The original books are as follows:

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!!Contains examples of:

* AnimatedAdaptation: Has one in the anime Anime/MischievousTwinsTheTalesOfStClares

* BigBrotherWorship: Eileen has an older brother called Edgar, whom she constantly talks about and clearly admires very much

* AlwaysIdenticalTwins: The titular twins, although they're not identical in personality and their classmates can easily tell them apart by the end of the series.

* AnachronismStew: Some of the later releases of the books were extensively [[{{Bowdlerize}} bowdlerized]] to try and make them more appealing to current generations - shillings to pounds, grandmother to grannies and so on. Particularly {{egregious}} are the more modern illustrations - the [[TheNineties '90s]] versions of the books find the girls drinking from plastic lemonade bottles and wearing baggy T-shirts and Rachel haircuts, while others have them wearing shorts instead of hockey skirts and so on. Carlotta threatening to slap Angela has also been edited out.

* UnequalPairing: Angela and the many, many first-formers that idolize her. Also the very assertive Mirabel and the very timid Gladys.

* TeachersPet: Most teachers disapprove of this sort of behaviour, but Miss Willcox and Miss Quentin actively encourage it for Alison and Anne-Marie, and Mam'zelle certainly has a soft spot for her niece Claudine.

** Elsie, Gladys and Mirabel from ''The Second Form At St Clare's''. Elsie was spiteful and thought she could boss everyone around- OK, fine. But Gladys was ignored because she was always miserable and very quiet, and nobody bothered to ask why, or they would have learned that she had an ''extremely'' good reason to be sad. A few times, someone asked her, but mostly they just ignored her, referring to her as "Misery-girl". Way to go there. Mirabel was initially written off by the others as 'spoiled' and 'peevish' because she outright stated that she didn't want to be there and wouldn't fit in. To be fair, Mirabel did her best to make life difficult for everyone in protest, but at no point did anyone try to see her side of things, or consider that being sent to boarding school for months without a say in the matter is by no means a minor issue- even the twins, who also got sent to St. Clare's without a say in the matter and ''should'' have been sympathetic. The similarities are even pointed out, and one of the girls says that the twins, having gone through Mirabel's situation before, should know how to deal with her.

%%* WeatherReportNarration: On occasion.

* ExtremeDoormat: Pam, whom the nasty Prudence forces into being friends with until she finally stands up for herself.

The ''St. Clare's'' novels are a series of six books by EnidBlyton following twins Pat and Isabel through the titular British BoardingSchool. A lot of the characters are very similar to those in the ''Literature/MaloryTowers'' series.

** ''The Twins at St. Clare's''
** ''The O'Sullivan Twins''
** ''Summer Term at St. Clare's''
** ''Second Form at St. Clare's''
** ''Claudine at St. Clare's''
** ''Fifth Formers at St. Clare's''

!Contains examples of: