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Malory Towers #1-3
Malory Towers Collection 1
There's more to life than lessons at Malory Towers, Enid Blyton's best-loved boarding school series. This fantastic bumper collection contains Malory Towers books 1-3, with a brand-new cover illustrated by Pippa Curnick. First TermDarrell Rivers is thrilled to start her first term at boarding school. She soon makes friends - and mischief! Another new girl, Gwendoline is beginning to get on everyone's nerves. Will Darrell be able to keep her fiery temper under controlSecond FormDarrell Rivers is excited to be going into her second year at Malory Towers - but is she ready for the drama it will bring Jealousy flares when a new head of the form is chosen, and the girls become suspicious when their belongings go missing. And why on earth has timid Mary-Lou ventured out during a terrible storm Third YearThis term, the girls get a surprise when Darrell Rivers returns to Malory Towers with a glamorous new girl in tow. Zerelda soon catches everyone's eye for all the wrong reasons! Meanwhile, Bill is causing a stir with her horse-mad ways - and there's a big shock in store for Darrell . . . Between 1946 and 1951, Enid Blyton wrote six novels set at Malory Towers. This collection features the original stories and is unillustrated.
640 pages, Paperback
Published December 3, 2024
365 people are currently reading
321 people want to read
About the author
Enid Blyton
5,132 books6,308 followersSee also:
Ένιντ Μπλάιτον (Greek)
Enida Blaitona (Latvian)
Энид Блайтон (Russian)
Inid Blajton (Serbian)
Інід Блайтон (Ukrainian)
Enid Mary Blyton (1897–1968) was an English author of children's books.
Born in South London, Blyton was the eldest of three children, and showed an early interest in music and reading. She was educated at St. Christopher's School, Beckenham, and - having decided not to pursue her music - at Ipswich High School, where she trained as a kindergarten teacher. She taught for five years before her 1924 marriage to editor Hugh Pollock, with whom she had two daughters. This marriage ended in divorce, and Blyton remarried in 1943, to surgeon Kenneth Fraser Darrell Waters. She died in 1968, one year after her second husband.
Blyton was a prolific author of children's books, who penned an estimated 800 books over about 40 years. Her stories were often either children's adventure and mystery stories, or fantasies involving magic. Notable series include: The Famous Five, The Secret Seven, The Five Find-Outers, Noddy, The Wishing Chair, Mallory Towers, and St. Clare's.
According to the Index Translationum, Blyton was the fifth most popular author in the world in 2007, coming after Lenin but ahead of Shakespeare.
See also her pen name Mary Pollock
Ένιντ Μπλάιτον (Greek)
Enida Blaitona (Latvian)
Энид Блайтон (Russian)
Inid Blajton (Serbian)
Інід Блайтон (Ukrainian)
Enid Mary Blyton (1897–1968) was an English author of children's books.
Born in South London, Blyton was the eldest of three children, and showed an early interest in music and reading. She was educated at St. Christopher's School, Beckenham, and - having decided not to pursue her music - at Ipswich High School, where she trained as a kindergarten teacher. She taught for five years before her 1924 marriage to editor Hugh Pollock, with whom she had two daughters. This marriage ended in divorce, and Blyton remarried in 1943, to surgeon Kenneth Fraser Darrell Waters. She died in 1968, one year after her second husband.
Blyton was a prolific author of children's books, who penned an estimated 800 books over about 40 years. Her stories were often either children's adventure and mystery stories, or fantasies involving magic. Notable series include: The Famous Five, The Secret Seven, The Five Find-Outers, Noddy, The Wishing Chair, Mallory Towers, and St. Clare's.
According to the Index Translationum, Blyton was the fifth most popular author in the world in 2007, coming after Lenin but ahead of Shakespeare.
See also her pen name Mary Pollock
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 43 reviews
November 24, 2025
Lovely to revisit Malory Towers on the Kindle, still as fresh!
February 28, 2020
Rereading this brings back childhood memories. I devoured all Enid Blyton's books I could get my hands on and what a wonderful period of time that was!
Decades later, apparently I could still enjoy this boarding school story. Teacher pranks, lacrosse matches, and all the drama you'd expect from a variety of memorable characters. I still remember the vicious tongued Alicia, the steadfast Sally, the spoilt Gwendoline, the scatterbrained Irene, the horse-mad Bill, the shy but kind Mary Lou, I could go on. Looking forward to reread the next ones.
Decades later, apparently I could still enjoy this boarding school story. Teacher pranks, lacrosse matches, and all the drama you'd expect from a variety of memorable characters. I still remember the vicious tongued Alicia, the steadfast Sally, the spoilt Gwendoline, the scatterbrained Irene, the horse-mad Bill, the shy but kind Mary Lou, I could go on. Looking forward to reread the next ones.
June 24, 2021
Re-reading for the BPL summer challenge (box: read a childhood favourite) ...it’s still wizard! 😄
July 30, 2022
An old favorite! Old-school fiction, and shows a true life about coming of age girls in an all-girls' school. Friends, mysteries, laughs ... enemies to friends ... it's on my all-time favorite list :)
September 21, 2020
This first collection is amazing
It’s great to reread as well
It’s great to reread as well
June 23, 2020
A friend mentioned this series as an antidote to finishing her PhD, and I realised I'd not read them. I was thrilled to find something for a slightly older reader than my previous Enid Blyton reads, The Faraway Tree and The Wishing Chair; and a school story rather than the adventures in The Famous Five etc.
The girls of Malory Towers are great fun, all have some faults, most have really positive features. There is the occasional girl whom we think will never adjust her negative behaviour and will provide a focus for 'the nasty girl' throughout the series. The 'nasty' girl in this collection managed to redeem herself in the third book - a satisfying outcome.
The series provides the young reader with a range of characters with whom to identify, none perfect, all human, and most ready to follow Blyton's excellent suggestions for becoming thoughtful, smart young women.
Friendships, and the evolution of these into worthwhile relationships is an important theme. Newcomer, Darrell, is keen to follow a very bright sparky girl initially, but finds enduring friendship in a calmer girl. Friendships are explored well in this series, the perceived shortcomings of some girls being questioned and then, through events understood and reevaluated.
Teachers are human, with the requisite amount of flaws to make them targets of jests. Some of these fall flat, providing a swift learning curve for their perpetrators. Others, are humorous, the teachers usually taking them in good part. Where girls are punished it is often something that they bring upon themselves, although writing lines is a feature, as in many school stories.
The language in this series is certainly more sophisticated then in the books for younger readers, and I feel that Blyton made more effort to engage with complex ideas and personalities. This series provides a good read for young and adults who want to enjoy being young again. I appreciated finding Malory Towers as an adult.
The girls of Malory Towers are great fun, all have some faults, most have really positive features. There is the occasional girl whom we think will never adjust her negative behaviour and will provide a focus for 'the nasty girl' throughout the series. The 'nasty' girl in this collection managed to redeem herself in the third book - a satisfying outcome.
The series provides the young reader with a range of characters with whom to identify, none perfect, all human, and most ready to follow Blyton's excellent suggestions for becoming thoughtful, smart young women.
Friendships, and the evolution of these into worthwhile relationships is an important theme. Newcomer, Darrell, is keen to follow a very bright sparky girl initially, but finds enduring friendship in a calmer girl. Friendships are explored well in this series, the perceived shortcomings of some girls being questioned and then, through events understood and reevaluated.
Teachers are human, with the requisite amount of flaws to make them targets of jests. Some of these fall flat, providing a swift learning curve for their perpetrators. Others, are humorous, the teachers usually taking them in good part. Where girls are punished it is often something that they bring upon themselves, although writing lines is a feature, as in many school stories.
The language in this series is certainly more sophisticated then in the books for younger readers, and I feel that Blyton made more effort to engage with complex ideas and personalities. This series provides a good read for young and adults who want to enjoy being young again. I appreciated finding Malory Towers as an adult.
May 14, 2019
Childhood memories!!
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December 31, 2020Love this book amazing for girls starting to read
January 22, 2021
It’s not perfect, I know but I love these books! Go glad I got to relive memories of reading these with a January buddy-read 😁📖
January 2, 2022
Nostalgic reading at its best!
I read these books so so often when I was young and I felt like going back. I now read the English version, whereas I used to read the Dutch translation and there were some translation errors and drastically changed names (f.e. Darrell became Pitty, I mean, come on!), so I was excited to read a non-translated version. And it didn’t let me down! It stood the test of time! A wonderful look into English boarding school life in 1946-1951. Yes, some things were old-fashioned, but it was such a nice read! And actually, the values in this book are wonderful! They aren’t old-fashioned, or at least they shouldn’t be.
Needless to say they’re well-written books. They swept me away, and I could NOT put it down. At all. I was feeling all those feelings again, that I had always felt when reading this book when I was young. I sympathized with Mary-Lou, oh, how my heart went out to her! Was angry at Gwendolyn. Irritated at Alicia, whom I didn’t like as much as Darrell did because she was quite blunt. Encouraged Darrell in my head. I love Darrell, but I am not blind to her faults. She was quite harsh a few times, but she learns. She learns to see things from another person’s perspective and learn empathy that way. I loved being a part of that process, because don’t we all have to learn, keep learning? I could relate to her easily, precisely because she’s not perfect. Because she has that temper she needs to learn to control. And also because of her sunny nature. But the person I took to the most was sweet, caring, giving Mary-Lou, scared, but to overcome that takes courage. She has such a big heart! And Sally, she may well become one of my favorite characters too.
Now I never want to leave Malory Towers. Ever again! Lucky for me there are more books and then the 6 written by the other author, I’ll give those a try too. These first three book, oh my, I had tears in my eyes more than once, no wonder this was such a favorite of mine in my youth!!! And the messages this series carries are beyond awesome!
Unputdownable. So good!
Why does it even work? Going from person to person with a sort of helicopter POV, which is normally not my favorite style. But it’s just so good, so more-ish, so pageturner-y, so ‘oops-I-stayed-up-way-too-late-y!
I read these books so so often when I was young and I felt like going back. I now read the English version, whereas I used to read the Dutch translation and there were some translation errors and drastically changed names (f.e. Darrell became Pitty, I mean, come on!), so I was excited to read a non-translated version. And it didn’t let me down! It stood the test of time! A wonderful look into English boarding school life in 1946-1951. Yes, some things were old-fashioned, but it was such a nice read! And actually, the values in this book are wonderful! They aren’t old-fashioned, or at least they shouldn’t be.
Needless to say they’re well-written books. They swept me away, and I could NOT put it down. At all. I was feeling all those feelings again, that I had always felt when reading this book when I was young. I sympathized with Mary-Lou, oh, how my heart went out to her! Was angry at Gwendolyn. Irritated at Alicia, whom I didn’t like as much as Darrell did because she was quite blunt. Encouraged Darrell in my head. I love Darrell, but I am not blind to her faults. She was quite harsh a few times, but she learns. She learns to see things from another person’s perspective and learn empathy that way. I loved being a part of that process, because don’t we all have to learn, keep learning? I could relate to her easily, precisely because she’s not perfect. Because she has that temper she needs to learn to control. And also because of her sunny nature. But the person I took to the most was sweet, caring, giving Mary-Lou, scared, but to overcome that takes courage. She has such a big heart! And Sally, she may well become one of my favorite characters too.
Now I never want to leave Malory Towers. Ever again! Lucky for me there are more books and then the 6 written by the other author, I’ll give those a try too. These first three book, oh my, I had tears in my eyes more than once, no wonder this was such a favorite of mine in my youth!!! And the messages this series carries are beyond awesome!
Unputdownable. So good!
Why does it even work? Going from person to person with a sort of helicopter POV, which is normally not my favorite style. But it’s just so good, so more-ish, so pageturner-y, so ‘oops-I-stayed-up-way-too-late-y!
February 8, 2024
Straight off I have to say, I do not like the covers on these book collections, I think they're just a touch bland and are doing a bit of a disservice to the lovely books inside. But I am also not the target age range and maybe the kids love them.
Anyways! I enjoyed my time at Malory towers immensely, this is a collection of the first three books, covering Darrell's time from the first to the third form as she makes friends, learns and gets up to various hijinks with the other girls.
Darrell is a pretty good lead to follow, I'd say she's a bit of an every(wo)man, she's nice, loyal and decently clever and is a good base to focus on with the other girls providing a colorful background cast of different personalities.
The plot is cosy and fun if a little obvious at times, (someone always ends up working herself into a bad situation towards the end of the book and then suffers a little for it, but comes out good the other end) tricks are played on teachers and usually very quickly regretted but soon done again etc.
But it is all good fun, I love the setting and the time period, the girls and their politics are always interesting. Everything is wizard except for sneaks and spoilsports of course!
I'll certainly be getting the last three books at some point as I'm very interested to see how all the girls end up.
Anyways! I enjoyed my time at Malory towers immensely, this is a collection of the first three books, covering Darrell's time from the first to the third form as she makes friends, learns and gets up to various hijinks with the other girls.
Darrell is a pretty good lead to follow, I'd say she's a bit of an every(wo)man, she's nice, loyal and decently clever and is a good base to focus on with the other girls providing a colorful background cast of different personalities.
The plot is cosy and fun if a little obvious at times, (someone always ends up working herself into a bad situation towards the end of the book and then suffers a little for it, but comes out good the other end) tricks are played on teachers and usually very quickly regretted but soon done again etc.
But it is all good fun, I love the setting and the time period, the girls and their politics are always interesting. Everything is wizard except for sneaks and spoilsports of course!
I'll certainly be getting the last three books at some point as I'm very interested to see how all the girls end up.
January 26, 2021
Purely a nostalgic read although at some points it felt new too because all the names are so different. It's still wonderful, the boarding school life seems very fun. However, quite a few of the girls are not actually nice people?! If you don't adhere to the boarding school life rules of the girls they with laugh at you quite a bit. Even Darrell is a little unlikeable at times. Never noticed that reading these as a child!
June 28, 2019
An awesome book for young girls.
This book is so well written, simple english and always fun to read. I had read this for the first time 20 years back when I was in school. And ne felt like reading it again. It felt as good as as I had felt when I had first come across this series in my school library.
This book is so well written, simple english and always fun to read. I had read this for the first time 20 years back when I was in school. And ne felt like reading it again. It felt as good as as I had felt when I had first come across this series in my school library.
July 5, 2023
First term-
It was really good and funny about young children going to a boarding school and their life is full of tricks and trouble. I defiantly recommend it to young readers.
Second form-
Some new girls have joined and that means double the trouble!!!!!
Third Year
Adventurous and defiantly mysterious very good fun.
It was really good and funny about young children going to a boarding school and their life is full of tricks and trouble. I defiantly recommend it to young readers.
Second form-
Some new girls have joined and that means double the trouble!!!!!
Third Year
Adventurous and defiantly mysterious very good fun.
June 5, 2025
My source of joy, rekindling childhood memories. Reading it again makes me feel young, carefree and calm, full of life and fun. It makes me feel like a child again, eager to learn and make friends at school, when my parents were still around. For a while, I forget my current struggles in life and the stress at work.
July 16, 2020
Lovely, just lovely
The queen of children's stories, Enid Blyton. Great collection of stories. Very moral but also lighthearted. They shouldn't have made the changes to the money as the new amounts don't make sense.
The queen of children's stories, Enid Blyton. Great collection of stories. Very moral but also lighthearted. They shouldn't have made the changes to the money as the new amounts don't make sense.
March 6, 2021
This was an amazing book that really made me want to go to Malory Towers in Cornwall. My favourite character was Mary Lou, She might be small but she in the end of the book she finds out who she really is and what she can do!!😊
September 5, 2022
comfort series. literally so so good i love this series so much and when i was younger i always wanted to go to a boarding school like this! idk i just liked that the girls had so much fun without any presence of men it was really refreshing. 1000000/5
February 28, 2018
IAn exciting new life for Darrell
Three great books, I really enjoyed. Thank you Enid Blyton I am looking forward to the next three very much.
Three great books, I really enjoyed. Thank you Enid Blyton I am looking forward to the next three very much.
June 24, 2019
Good
Love Enid Blyton characters. It really shows the reality and different types of people. Humorous and geniune stories of simple children
Love Enid Blyton characters. It really shows the reality and different types of people. Humorous and geniune stories of simple children
December 7, 2019
Loved it. Will never tire of reading it
January 14, 2021
Malory Towers is a lovely book to read. It is exciting and funny and is certainly not predictable.
July 29, 2023
I enjoyed this book a lot. I loved the old school girl setting and it was an easy read between books. I think it is a great book for young girls to navigate their emotions and friendships.
October 28, 2023
This book was the first 500 page book I ever read. It was interesting but took a lot of time to read.
May 17, 2024
Still my favorite of all time♡ i am re-reading all series now. Miss them so muchㅠ.ㅠ
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September 9, 2024Absolutely awesome 👌, a definite must!
October 25, 2024
pretty mid okay liked the horses and the sass of belinda
December 4, 2024
Oddly comforting.
April 4, 2025
Nothing is as good as a classic book. Malory towers is such a good book for me because it's about a boarding school. And Daryl is still getting into trouble as usual
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May 1, 2025A classic book about a girl, Darrel Rivers, who goes to college and it's all about her adventures, friendship, and growth. The series can be watched on BBC iplayer
Displaying 1 - 30 of 43 reviews