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St. Trinian's: The Entire Appalling Business
A complete collection of Lilliput magazine drawings based on the boarding school residents of St. Trinian's is a compendium of darkly comic depictions of young women embodying both polished manners and decidedly human vices.
144 pages, Hardcover
First published March 13, 2008
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About the author
Ronald Searle
180 books33 followersRonald William Fordham Searle, CBE, RDI, is an influential English artist and cartoonist. Best known as the creator of St Trinian's School (the subject of several books and seven full-length films). He is also the co-author (with Geoffrey Willans) of the Molesworth series.
He started drawing at the age of five and left school at the age of 15. In April 1939, realizing that war was inevitable, he abandoned his art studies to enlist in the Royal Engineers. He trained at Cambridge College of Arts and Technology, currently Anglia Ruskin University, for two years, and in 1941, published the first St Trinian's cartoon in the magazine Lilliput.
In January 1942, he was stationed in Singapore. After a month of fighting in Malaya, Singapore fell to the Japanese, and he was taken prisoner along with his cousin Tom Fordham Searle. He spent the rest of the war a prisoner, first in Changi Prison and then in the Kwai jungle, working on the Siam-Burma Death Railway. The brutal camp conditions were documented by Searle in a series of drawings that he hid under the mattresses of prisoners dying of cholera. Liberated late in 1945, Searle returned to England where he published several of the surviving drawings in fellow prisoner Russell Braddon's The Naked Island. Most of these drawings appear in his 1986 book, Ronald Searle: To the Kwai and Back, War Drawings 1939-1945. At least one of the drawings is on display at the Changi Museum and Chapel, Singapore, but the majority of these original drawings, approximately 300, are in the permanent collection of the Imperial War Museum, London, along with the works of other POW artists.
Searle produced an extraordinary volume of work during the 1950s, including drawings for Life, Holiday and Punch. His cartoons appeared in The New Yorker, the Sunday Express and the News Chronicle. He compiled more St Trinian's books, which were based on his sister's school and other girls' schools in Cambridge. He collaborated with Geoffrey Willans on the Molesworth books (Down With Skool!, 1953, and How to be Topp, 1954), and with Alex Atkinson on travel books. In addition to advertisements and posters, Searle drew the title backgrounds of the Sidney Gilliat and Frank Launder film The Happiest Days of Your Life.
In 1961, he moved to Paris, leaving his family and later marrying Monica Koenig, theater designer and creator of necklaces. In France he worked more on reportage for Life and Holiday and less on cartoons. He also continued to work in a broad range of media and created books (including his well-known cat books), animated films and sculpture for commemorative medals, both for the French Mint and the British Art Medal Society.[2][3] Searle did a considerable amount of designing for the cinema, and in 1965, he completed the opening, intermission and closing credits for the comedy film Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines. In 1975, the full-length cartoon Dick Deadeye was released. Animated by a number of artists both British and French, it is considered by some to be his greatest achievement, although Searle himself detested the result.
Searle received much recognition for his work, especially in America, including the National Cartoonists Society's Advertising and Illustration Award in 1959 and 1965, the Reuben Award in 1960, their Illustration Award in 1980 and their Advertising Award in 1986 and 1987. In 2007, he was decorated with France's highest award, the Légion d'honneur, and in 2009, he received the German Order of Merit. His work has had a great deal of influence, particularly on American cartoonists, including Pat Oliphant, Matt Groening, Hilary Knight and the animators of Disney's 101 Dalmatians. In 2005, he was the subject of a BBC documentary on his life and work by Russell Davies.
In 2010, he gave about 2,200 of his works as permanent loans to Wilhelm Busch Museum Hannover (Germany), now renamed Deutsches Museum für Karikatur und Zeichenkunst. The ancient Summer palace o
He started drawing at the age of five and left school at the age of 15. In April 1939, realizing that war was inevitable, he abandoned his art studies to enlist in the Royal Engineers. He trained at Cambridge College of Arts and Technology, currently Anglia Ruskin University, for two years, and in 1941, published the first St Trinian's cartoon in the magazine Lilliput.
In January 1942, he was stationed in Singapore. After a month of fighting in Malaya, Singapore fell to the Japanese, and he was taken prisoner along with his cousin Tom Fordham Searle. He spent the rest of the war a prisoner, first in Changi Prison and then in the Kwai jungle, working on the Siam-Burma Death Railway. The brutal camp conditions were documented by Searle in a series of drawings that he hid under the mattresses of prisoners dying of cholera. Liberated late in 1945, Searle returned to England where he published several of the surviving drawings in fellow prisoner Russell Braddon's The Naked Island. Most of these drawings appear in his 1986 book, Ronald Searle: To the Kwai and Back, War Drawings 1939-1945. At least one of the drawings is on display at the Changi Museum and Chapel, Singapore, but the majority of these original drawings, approximately 300, are in the permanent collection of the Imperial War Museum, London, along with the works of other POW artists.
Searle produced an extraordinary volume of work during the 1950s, including drawings for Life, Holiday and Punch. His cartoons appeared in The New Yorker, the Sunday Express and the News Chronicle. He compiled more St Trinian's books, which were based on his sister's school and other girls' schools in Cambridge. He collaborated with Geoffrey Willans on the Molesworth books (Down With Skool!, 1953, and How to be Topp, 1954), and with Alex Atkinson on travel books. In addition to advertisements and posters, Searle drew the title backgrounds of the Sidney Gilliat and Frank Launder film The Happiest Days of Your Life.
In 1961, he moved to Paris, leaving his family and later marrying Monica Koenig, theater designer and creator of necklaces. In France he worked more on reportage for Life and Holiday and less on cartoons. He also continued to work in a broad range of media and created books (including his well-known cat books), animated films and sculpture for commemorative medals, both for the French Mint and the British Art Medal Society.[2][3] Searle did a considerable amount of designing for the cinema, and in 1965, he completed the opening, intermission and closing credits for the comedy film Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines. In 1975, the full-length cartoon Dick Deadeye was released. Animated by a number of artists both British and French, it is considered by some to be his greatest achievement, although Searle himself detested the result.
Searle received much recognition for his work, especially in America, including the National Cartoonists Society's Advertising and Illustration Award in 1959 and 1965, the Reuben Award in 1960, their Illustration Award in 1980 and their Advertising Award in 1986 and 1987. In 2007, he was decorated with France's highest award, the Légion d'honneur, and in 2009, he received the German Order of Merit. His work has had a great deal of influence, particularly on American cartoonists, including Pat Oliphant, Matt Groening, Hilary Knight and the animators of Disney's 101 Dalmatians. In 2005, he was the subject of a BBC documentary on his life and work by Russell Davies.
In 2010, he gave about 2,200 of his works as permanent loans to Wilhelm Busch Museum Hannover (Germany), now renamed Deutsches Museum für Karikatur und Zeichenkunst. The ancient Summer palace o
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Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews
November 25, 2014
I suppose it shows my age but the St Trinians book is a delight. I can sing some of the school song and still delight in the early flm with Alastair Sim as Miss Fitton.
September 1, 2020
How could you not love the girls of St. Trinian’s?
January 29, 2019
2019 - Bk 19. The other day I said I hated 'mean girls' in books, but to every thing there will probably be an exception, the entire St. Trinian's ouvre is mine. I just love to not trust these public(aka private) school girls in England. The closest novel to these are probably the Finishing School Series by Gail Carriger - and those are complete novels. The genius of Ronald Searle is that he gives a complete story in a single panel cartoon. This book contains all of the St. Trinian cartoons created by Ronald Searles. It also included a piece of information I had never heard. The first St. Trinian's cartoon was published shortly before Ronald Searles was sent off to war - where he was captured by the Japanese and sent off to a P.O.W. Camp. This book is for those with a quirky sense of humor or appreciate the skills of cartoonists.
March 5, 2022
I was aware of this book when it published and intended to get one, but never got around to it. Since then, it's become a very expensive book. At any rate, I managed to get a copy and thorougly enjoyed it, there are certainly parallels to Charles Addams for fans of the latter's work.
March 21, 2019
An absolutely wicked hoot ...
July 17, 2022
Made me want to get into ink drawings
June 11, 2017
I read this anthology hoping to find something as entertaining as the recent St. Trinian's movies. I was sorely disappointed.
I chuckled at a few of the cartoons, but only a few, and even those weren't memorable. Unlike the movies, which derive their humor from many situations, the cartoons seem to be a one-trick pony about the students being murderous. And as with any one-trick pony, it gets old very fast.
I didn't even find the drawings very interesting on their own merits; Searle's style isn't eye-catching, nor are his subjects. I don't really understand why these cartoons are so acclaimed, nor how they became famous enough to merit the two film series (though considering how much I enjoy the movies, I suppose I'm glad they did).
I chuckled at a few of the cartoons, but only a few, and even those weren't memorable. Unlike the movies, which derive their humor from many situations, the cartoons seem to be a one-trick pony about the students being murderous. And as with any one-trick pony, it gets old very fast.
I didn't even find the drawings very interesting on their own merits; Searle's style isn't eye-catching, nor are his subjects. I don't really understand why these cartoons are so acclaimed, nor how they became famous enough to merit the two film series (though considering how much I enjoy the movies, I suppose I'm glad they did).
January 22, 2014
For years I'd been wondering how these "St. Trinian" movies were able to attract such big named talent... now I know! Thanks to Flavia de Luce and Alan Bradley, I learned about the St. Trinian comics and picked up this definitive edition. Flavia has a debt to Ronald Searle, and even his life story which echoes that of Flavia's father and Dogger. The comics are so influenced by Charles Addams that it feels at times that Searle is channeling him, but being subject specific, unlike Addams. While you'd think this would piss me off, because of my adoration of Addams, there's something unique and so British about it that it stands on it's own despite the similarity. You can also see how influential these comics were to the drawing style of Hilary Knight. Wish there was more to read...
January 27, 2016
I've only seen the movie with Colin Firth in it so I don't really know what to expect, but St Trinian's is a delight. The humour is very wry, very black, and sometimes appalling, oh my gosh. But to be perfectly honest, I'd probably be very lost without the introduction. It helped me put Ronald Searle's work in a specific timeframe and gave the sometimes macabre humour a definite edge. Knowing that Searle had been a prisoner of war and had done sketches while in prison gives us the idea that this is gallows humour of the very best.
(And it helps I guess to see these little girls going through what to us adults are just the facts of life. The juxtaposition is unexpected and ironic. I love it.)
(And it helps I guess to see these little girls going through what to us adults are just the facts of life. The juxtaposition is unexpected and ironic. I love it.)
March 11, 2016
As a bloodthirsty thirteen year old entranced by anything macabre and monstrous, I was delighted to discover St. Trinian’s, Ronald Searle’s appalling school for outrageously vicious girls. As a snarky kid, I thought the cartoons hilarious and sophisticated. As a budding illustrator, I was also fascinated by Searle’s ability to layer lines of ink in an apparently careless way and create vibrant characters and convincing environments. His New Yorker covers and his books of travel drawings, cats, and cartoons reveal Ronald Searle as an accomplished draftsman and a keen satirist. His reportage illustrations are evocative and beautiful and his other books of cartoons are very entertaining. But my heart belongs to wickedly witty belles of St. Trinian’s.
June 4, 2011
The charming, misbehaving girls of St Trinian's offer a wonderful rejoinder to the portrait of British boarding schools found in, among others, the Harry Potter books. Published in the mid 20th century, Ronald Searle's multi-layered, single-pane comics portray a world in which a girl's greatest virtue is not getting caught. The girls of St Trinian's are violent and crude, and they have no scruples about torturing those they deem worthy. This volume collects all the comics (and there aren't as many as one might like), but it would have benefited from some commentary. Recommended but with reservations.
October 13, 2010
Thi was one of those books that showed up on list of books to read taht I'm not sure what impelled me to put it there. I had thought it was a graphic novel about a girls' boarding school, but it tuned out to be one-shots, more or less like you find in the New Yorker, I guess. The whole thing too like 30 minutes to read, and it wasn't bad, but it was also kinda clearly aimed at a different audience. I feel slightly bad giving it a bad rating; I don't think it's objectively bad, just...not what I wanted. On the other hand, I was unimpressed, so, two stars it is.
August 12, 2016
As I lay dying this weekend, this book was the happiest thing to cross my path, besides blessed sleep. This book was edited to include a charming little introduction by the artist's first wife, who pointed out the not-so-subtle change in tone before and after he was taken prisoner of war by the Japanese after the sinking of his ship in Singapore.
Delightful, wholly. Why didn't I read this when I was at boarding school I have no idea.
Delightful, wholly. Why didn't I read this when I was at boarding school I have no idea.
February 17, 2009
The book listed in the Guardian's 1000 Novels is Hurrah for St. Trinian's which I assume is included in what appears to be an omnibus volume.
August 9, 2011
Very naughty school girls. Completely love this.
June 9, 2014
I decided to get this book because I love the movie St. Trinian's. It was interesting to see where all of the ideas came from. The artwork and comic style is entertaining, but I prefer the movie.
December 8, 2014
A collection of all Searle's St. Trinian's books. Ahhh - heaven!
February 10, 2016
Strange cartoon book. Enjoyed reading the forward of the book/mini-history of the author Ronald Searle - he did not have an easy life.
May 1, 2016
Just the story behind the first cartoon and Searle's life is worth the read, it is amazing.
September 27, 2016
Fun book. This could have been the school that Wednesday Addams might have been sent to. A dark sense of humor is needed to enjoy this.
August 8, 2022
Eh, he's no Chas Addams. There's an occasional hit but mostly misses by far.
Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews