Merry Again

Merry #2

by Clare Mallory

Merry and her friends return to Tremayne School for winter term, and find that they have much to contend with, in the form of new girl Holly Stafford. Will this new pupil ruin Sennen's chance to be top house?

Genres: School Stories

271 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1947

About the author

'Clare Mallory' was a pseudonym of Winifred Constance McQuilkan Hall, a New Zealand children's author and educator who was born in 1913, in Invercargill. Educated at Southland Girls' High School, where she boarded after the death of both her parents in her early teens, she won a scholarship to Otago University, where she took first class honours in English, second class honours in Classics, the Macmillan Brown Prize, and a postgraduate scholarship to Oxford. It was at Otago that McQuilkan became friends with fellow writer Dan Davin, as well as her future husband, Frank Hall, who would go on to study medicine.

After two years at Somerville College (1937-39), McQuilkan again took first honours in English, and returning to New Zealand, she taught at Otago Girls' High School, and, in 1942, became headmistress of Columba College, Dunedin. This experience as an educator undoubtedly lent an authenticity to her school stories, which she began to write during her tenure at Columba. They began as stories the author told to her students during parties held to organize parcels sent to England during World War II, with the first - Merry Begins - being published in 1947.

In 1949, McQuilkan married Frank Hall, and accompanied him to England, where they lived in London. In 1952, the couple returned again to New Zealand, settling in Wellington, where the author taught at two girls' schools, and eventually, at Victoria University. She retired in 1978, was hospitalized for Alzheimer's Disease in 1986, and died in 1991.

Reviews

[Abigail · Rating 4 out of 5]

Merry (Rosemerryn) Arundel returns to Tremayne School for a second term in this sequel to Clare Mallory's Merry Begins , and soon she and her friends in Dormitory Ten have their hands full with the new girl, Holly Stafford. Raised by an overindulgent grandmother, Holly had never been to school, and was used to doing much as she pleased. She couldn't see the point of many school rules, and she often clashed with authority, whether exerted by the prefects or the staff. She had no interest in Sennen, her school house, and her rule-breaking looked as if it would ruin their chances of winning the house championship. For all her flaws, Holly had her good points, being both generous and honest, and eventually, through the good influence of Merry and the other 'Bups' (members of the 'back up Pauline' society), as well as some of the prefects and staff, she came to find her place at Tremayne...

Much like its predecessor, Merry Again belies its name, being as concerned with the school at large, as with its eponymous heroine's experiences. If anything, this second story is largely taken up with Holly's travails, as she makes a bad start at school, and must slowly learn her lesson. There were aspects of this process that I found distasteful at times, and many moments were I was in sympathy with Holly's rebellion against what seemed, at least to her, to be pointless regulations and arbitrary authority. On the other hand, there were times where I grew impatient with her stubborn insistence on her own way, and her willful rudeness when her will was checked. I appreciated the fact that Clare Mallory managed to convincingly portray both sides of Holly, and that she demonstrated, through the sub-plot involving Anne, that sometimes authority is inappropriately applied, albeit not in the way that Holly would object to. As with Merry Begins , I enjoyed the fact that the reader gets to share multiple perspectives here, rather than just that of the titular character. Recommended to anyone who read and enjoyed the first book in this series.