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The Chalet School #24
The Wrong Chalet School
The Wrong Chalet School Elinor M. Brent- Dyer
Hardcover
First published January 1, 1952
4 people are currently reading
131 people want to read
About the author
Elinor M. Brent-Dyer
171 books112 followersElinor M. Brent-Dyer was born as Gladys Eleanor May Dyer on 6th April 1894, in South Shields in the industrial northeast of England, and grew up in a terraced house which had no garden or inside toilet. She was the only daughter of Eleanor Watson Rutherford and Charles Morris Brent Dyer. Her father, who had been married before, left home when she was three years old. In 1912, her brother Henzell died at age 17 of cerebro-spinal fever. After her father died, her mother remarried in 1913.
Elinor was educated at a small local private school in South Shields and returned there to teach when she was eighteen after spending two years at the City of Leeds Training College. Her teaching career spanned 36 years, during which she taught in a wide variety of state and private schools in the northeast, in Middlesex, Bedfordshire, Hampshire, and finally in Hereford.
In the early 1920s she adopted the name Elinor Mary Brent-Dyer. A holiday she spent in the Austrian Tyrol at Pertisau-am-Achensee gave her the inspiration for the first location in the Chalet School series. However, her first book, 'Gerry Goes to School', was published in 1922 and was written for the child actress Hazel Bainbridge. Her first 'Chalet' story, 'The School at the Chalet', was originally published in 1925.
In 1930, the same year that 'Jean of Storms' was serialised, she converted to Roman Catholicism.
In 1933 the Brent-Dyer household (she lived with her mother and stepfather until her mother's death in 1957) moved to Hereford. She travelled daily to Peterchurch as a governess.
When her stepfather died she started her own school in Hereford, The Margaret Roper School. It was non-denominational but with a strong religious tradition. Many Chalet School customs were followed, the girls even wore a similar uniform made in the Chalet School's colours of brown and flame. Elinor was rather untidy, erratic and flamboyant and not really suited to being a headmistress. After her school closed in 1948 she devoted most of her time to writing.
Elinor's mother died in 1957 and in 1964 she moved to Redhill, where she lived in a joint establishment with fellow school story author Phyllis Matthewman and her husband, until her death on 20th September 1969.
During her lifetime Elinor M. Brent-Dyer published 101 books but she is remembered mainly for her Chalet School series. The series numbers 58 books and is the longest-surviving series of girls' school-stories ever known, having been continuously in print for more than 70 years. One hundred thousand paperback copies are still being sold each year.
Among her published books are other school stories; family, historical, adventure and animal stories; a cookery book, and four educational geography-readers. She also wrote plays and numerous unpublished poems and was a keen musician.
In 1994, the year of the centenary of her Elinor Brent-Dyer's birth, Friends of the Chalet School put up plaques in Pertisau, South Shields and Hereford, and a headstone was erected on her grave in Redstone Cemetery, since there was not one previously. They also put flowers on her grave on the anniversaries of her birth and death and on other special occasions.
Elinor was educated at a small local private school in South Shields and returned there to teach when she was eighteen after spending two years at the City of Leeds Training College. Her teaching career spanned 36 years, during which she taught in a wide variety of state and private schools in the northeast, in Middlesex, Bedfordshire, Hampshire, and finally in Hereford.
In the early 1920s she adopted the name Elinor Mary Brent-Dyer. A holiday she spent in the Austrian Tyrol at Pertisau-am-Achensee gave her the inspiration for the first location in the Chalet School series. However, her first book, 'Gerry Goes to School', was published in 1922 and was written for the child actress Hazel Bainbridge. Her first 'Chalet' story, 'The School at the Chalet', was originally published in 1925.
In 1930, the same year that 'Jean of Storms' was serialised, she converted to Roman Catholicism.
In 1933 the Brent-Dyer household (she lived with her mother and stepfather until her mother's death in 1957) moved to Hereford. She travelled daily to Peterchurch as a governess.
When her stepfather died she started her own school in Hereford, The Margaret Roper School. It was non-denominational but with a strong religious tradition. Many Chalet School customs were followed, the girls even wore a similar uniform made in the Chalet School's colours of brown and flame. Elinor was rather untidy, erratic and flamboyant and not really suited to being a headmistress. After her school closed in 1948 she devoted most of her time to writing.
Elinor's mother died in 1957 and in 1964 she moved to Redhill, where she lived in a joint establishment with fellow school story author Phyllis Matthewman and her husband, until her death on 20th September 1969.
During her lifetime Elinor M. Brent-Dyer published 101 books but she is remembered mainly for her Chalet School series. The series numbers 58 books and is the longest-surviving series of girls' school-stories ever known, having been continuously in print for more than 70 years. One hundred thousand paperback copies are still being sold each year.
Among her published books are other school stories; family, historical, adventure and animal stories; a cookery book, and four educational geography-readers. She also wrote plays and numerous unpublished poems and was a keen musician.
In 1994, the year of the centenary of her Elinor Brent-Dyer's birth, Friends of the Chalet School put up plaques in Pertisau, South Shields and Hereford, and a headstone was erected on her grave in Redstone Cemetery, since there was not one previously. They also put flowers on her grave on the anniversaries of her birth and death and on other special occasions.
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Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
June 6, 2023
May 2023: This line always jumps out at me:
February 2017: This is actually a really good Chalet School story, but I read it before The Chalet School in Exile and now, looking back, it's less of a book in comparison to Exile's fraught historical time frame.
That said, there's something amazingly, ridiculously lighthearted about two Chalet Schools on the same island - both with Miss Wilsons - with students named Mary Katherine Gordon and Katherine Mary Gordon. In this situation it's taken to the extreme - classic boarding-school story style! - but why wouldn't mistakes like this happen more often?
And I like Aunt Luce choosing the school based on the uniform. That's the most realistic artsy thing she does.
I'm less of a fan of the "we can't possibly lose a student destined for Wimbledon" perspective. But it's a throwaway line, at least, and the rest of the book is really entertaining.
“Madge, too, is a different woman. You know, I think she had got into a rut. I’m sure she was in danger of becoming ‘That very sweet woman, Lady Russell.’ There’s a lot more to her than that…”
February 2017: This is actually a really good Chalet School story, but I read it before The Chalet School in Exile and now, looking back, it's less of a book in comparison to Exile's fraught historical time frame.
That said, there's something amazingly, ridiculously lighthearted about two Chalet Schools on the same island - both with Miss Wilsons - with students named Mary Katherine Gordon and Katherine Mary Gordon. In this situation it's taken to the extreme - classic boarding-school story style! - but why wouldn't mistakes like this happen more often?
And I like Aunt Luce choosing the school based on the uniform. That's the most realistic artsy thing she does.
I'm less of a fan of the "we can't possibly lose a student destined for Wimbledon" perspective. But it's a throwaway line, at least, and the rest of the book is really entertaining.
December 7, 2017
This is so wholeheartedly a good book. In a way, it's a prototype for the ideal school story. The new girl arrives; highjinks jink, a Talent Is Discovered, and another girl gets her comeuppance. The difference with The Wrong Chalet School is that it's so fiercely dippy that you can't be held back by doubt or questions. This book is what it is. It doesn't hold back from itself and that's what makes it so special.
Katherine Mary Gordon is our new girl, and could it be that she's been sent to the wrong Chalet School? Of course she has, and that's where the joy of this begins. It's delivered with such conviction and such heart that even as the coincidences continue, and the plot gets delightfully caught up in itself with pay-offs and cross-references, you just love it more. And when Brent-Dyer cracks out one of her patented moments of heartbreaking loveliness, you just cry and then you love it a little bit more.
I've been on a Chalet School kick at the moment and I suspect that I'll leave it at Wrong for a while. It's not to say that I won't come back to these books because I will always come back to my beloveds; but rather, to say that I don't want this read to be diluted. The 'island' phases of the Chalet School have always had a special place in my heart because they are just so richly done; more so than 'stately home in the country with a Queen Anne vibe' and, forgive me, than 'the kind of magically extendable Swiss Platz'. I believe these books in the Tiernsee and here, where the girls hold ridiculously elaborate pageants in the sea, and have swimming lessons and accidentally get stung by jellyfish. I don't know, this is my heart maybe, this place of ridiculous joy.
Katherine Mary Gordon is our new girl, and could it be that she's been sent to the wrong Chalet School? Of course she has, and that's where the joy of this begins. It's delivered with such conviction and such heart that even as the coincidences continue, and the plot gets delightfully caught up in itself with pay-offs and cross-references, you just love it more. And when Brent-Dyer cracks out one of her patented moments of heartbreaking loveliness, you just cry and then you love it a little bit more.
I've been on a Chalet School kick at the moment and I suspect that I'll leave it at Wrong for a while. It's not to say that I won't come back to these books because I will always come back to my beloveds; but rather, to say that I don't want this read to be diluted. The 'island' phases of the Chalet School have always had a special place in my heart because they are just so richly done; more so than 'stately home in the country with a Queen Anne vibe' and, forgive me, than 'the kind of magically extendable Swiss Platz'. I believe these books in the Tiernsee and here, where the girls hold ridiculously elaborate pageants in the sea, and have swimming lessons and accidentally get stung by jellyfish. I don't know, this is my heart maybe, this place of ridiculous joy.
October 22, 2014
Strangely (given it's not set in my favourite time period in the series nor features my favourite character) this has become one of my favourite Chalet School books
February 20, 2020
Really enjoyed rereading this one - it feels cohesive and thought through as a novel, with Katharine Gordon's mistaken arrival at the Chalet School pairing well with her tennis prowess to add colour to the term defined by this particular Chaletian.
February 17, 2017
One of my favorites, despite the fact that the Island is my least favorite of all the locations.
August 12, 2016
This is the Chalet book my husband picked for me to read aloud to him one night while he cooked dinner - this was a good 20 years ago, at an early stage in our relationship, and he was curious as to why I was so attached to all these books. He picked this one because the title intrigued him.
What a mistake to make. It moves from tedious in-depth descriptions of unpacking trunks to tedious ball-by-ball accounts of tennis matches and my husband found it both boring and baffling. Hey ho.
I really enjoyed it, as usual, on this re-read. Joey only turns up via a couple of letters, there are good strong characters amongst the girls and staff, it's nice sunshiney weather, and there's the pageant at the end with Tom and the conch. What's not to like?
This is probably also the first time I've read it since buying my own copy of Forever Amber (the naughty book named in my edition, although if I recall correctly the title of the naughty book is different in different editions). Have to say, the amount of trouble Jennifer Penrose gets into for reading it does make more sense now I've read it myself!
Dilemma now - do I read Shocks or Oberland next?!
What a mistake to make. It moves from tedious in-depth descriptions of unpacking trunks to tedious ball-by-ball accounts of tennis matches and my husband found it both boring and baffling. Hey ho.
I really enjoyed it, as usual, on this re-read. Joey only turns up via a couple of letters, there are good strong characters amongst the girls and staff, it's nice sunshiney weather, and there's the pageant at the end with Tom and the conch. What's not to like?
This is probably also the first time I've read it since buying my own copy of Forever Amber (the naughty book named in my edition, although if I recall correctly the title of the naughty book is different in different editions). Have to say, the amount of trouble Jennifer Penrose gets into for reading it does make more sense now I've read it myself!
Dilemma now - do I read Shocks or Oberland next?!
October 24, 2023
This is 24th in the original Chalet School series for teenagers. I roughly remembered the plot... a likeable girl, Katharine Gordon, joins the school but finds several inconsistencies. I had forgotten the details - that her name is not recorded quite correctly, for instance, and that two trunks arrive rather than one. She puts it all down to her scatty Aunt Luce who is an 'artistic' type, and settles down quickly.
The core of the plot relies on an extremely unlikely coincidence, but I didn't worry about it. It's a well-written book, for the genre, and even the school parts are not too run-of-the-mill, although I admit to skipping rapidly through the inevitable end-of-term pageant at the end.
I very much like re-reading my teenage favourites, when I want something light, and I liked this one very much. Recommended if you like mid-20th century school stories.
Latest longer review: https://suesbookreviews.blogspot.com/...
The core of the plot relies on an extremely unlikely coincidence, but I didn't worry about it. It's a well-written book, for the genre, and even the school parts are not too run-of-the-mill, although I admit to skipping rapidly through the inevitable end-of-term pageant at the end.
I very much like re-reading my teenage favourites, when I want something light, and I liked this one very much. Recommended if you like mid-20th century school stories.
Latest longer review: https://suesbookreviews.blogspot.com/...
March 15, 2010
Katherine Mary Gordon has been sent to the Chalet School. She's been staying with her Aunt Luce, her parents were overseas working. Her Aunt Luce is an artist, one who forgets about everything else whilst she's painting. Once Katherine reaches the Chalet School, a mysterious trunk appears labeled to Mary Katherine Gordon.
It's not her trunk, so whose could it be? And when it's discovered that Katherine was not meant to be sent to this Chalet School, where is the other Mary Katherine Gordon?
It's not her trunk, so whose could it be? And when it's discovered that Katherine was not meant to be sent to this Chalet School, where is the other Mary Katherine Gordon?
April 14, 2014
The Wrong Chalet School was my first encounter with the Chalet School series. It hasn't lost any of its charm! Highly recommended - it's such a shame that the books of the series are either out of print or only available new at a price well over the odds for children's books! There are still a good number of second-hand copies floating about cheaply, though, and it's well worth trying to get hold of them!
February 25, 2011
Through a mixup Katherine Mary Gordon is sent to the Chalet school by mistake. However she predictably comes to thrive there. Enjoyable not-too-cloying story with an engaging heroine and a tiny bit of a mystery. Whatever happened to Mary Katherine Gordon?
February 4, 2011
Thoroughly enjoyable! I definitely enjoyed the mystery surrounding Katharine at first, and she was a delightful new girl to follow.
September 10, 2011
Another tale of the girls at the Chalet School. Enjoyed it a lot!
June 14, 2015
Great story, usual funny antics and characters. Blimey! How many kids will the Bettany women have?!
January 23, 2024
3.5
Enjoyable book within the series but not especially memorable
As I am reading the series in order for the first time the repetitive nature of some of the plots and themes is more apparent
Similarities in the last 3 books of the new girl cared for by a guardian while parents are away or lost at sea as in Island
Also odd that after Carola there is another implausible plot about a girl who shouldn’t be there but how calmly she is accepted and no mention of the need for school fees to be paid
But nobody reads EBD’s books for realism
I always felt with the island books that EBD was influenced by Enid Blyton’s school stories with more emphasis on the spots played in the school but possibly just due to the fact that as the school is in the UK and wartime travel / petrol restrictions lifted it is now possible for the Chalet School to engage competitively with other schools
There is the feeling that EBD is longing to return to the more exotic and exciting atmosphere of the Alps
Enjoyable book within the series but not especially memorable
As I am reading the series in order for the first time the repetitive nature of some of the plots and themes is more apparent
Similarities in the last 3 books of the new girl cared for by a guardian while parents are away or lost at sea as in Island
Also odd that after Carola there is another implausible plot about a girl who shouldn’t be there but how calmly she is accepted and no mention of the need for school fees to be paid
But nobody reads EBD’s books for realism
I always felt with the island books that EBD was influenced by Enid Blyton’s school stories with more emphasis on the spots played in the school but possibly just due to the fact that as the school is in the UK and wartime travel / petrol restrictions lifted it is now possible for the Chalet School to engage competitively with other schools
There is the feeling that EBD is longing to return to the more exotic and exciting atmosphere of the Alps
May 10, 2020
I flew through this book.
Could some people find the Katherine Mary/Mary Katherine portion a bit unbelievable? Maybe, but I find it well within the realm of possibility.
Could some people find the Katherine Mary/Mary Katherine portion a bit unbelievable? Maybe, but I find it well within the realm of possibility.
April 7, 2021
You do have to suspend your disbelief but great fun.
June 17, 2021
Good fun except for the unnecessarily detailed and boring description of the school pageant.
October 21, 2025
No matter how many times I read this, I don’t really understand how the Chalet School mix-up happened. There are so many plot holes here.
February 7, 2025
The Wrong Chalet School is book 27 of a reread (I started at Exile don’t @ at me, then went back to School at the Chalet and continued forward from there), and is book 24 in the series, being one of the books set on St Briavel. First reread of the Chalet School books since I went to Pertisau.
I do love this book, it’s funny one of my favourite Chalet School books and Katherine is a lovely heroine. Hilarious moments throughout and Katherine of course proves herself to be the perfect Chalet Girl. The only slightly annoying thing is that on a straight reread immediately after Carola it’s a bit much - two crazy Aunts, 2 girls who arrive unexpectedly and unintentionally and can’t be sent away. That said I love this book and it’s pleasures never miss. 5 stars
I do love this book, it’s funny one of my favourite Chalet School books and Katherine is a lovely heroine. Hilarious moments throughout and Katherine of course proves herself to be the perfect Chalet Girl. The only slightly annoying thing is that on a straight reread immediately after Carola it’s a bit much - two crazy Aunts, 2 girls who arrive unexpectedly and unintentionally and can’t be sent away. That said I love this book and it’s pleasures never miss. 5 stars
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews