Malory Towers Collection 1 cover art

Malory Towers Collection 1

Books 1-3

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Malory Towers Collection 1

By: Enid Blyton
Narrated by: Beth Eyre
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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 Term
Darrell 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 control?

Second Form
Darrell 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 Year
This 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.

(P)2019 Hodder & Stoughton Limited©2019 Hodder Children's Books Action & Adventure Classics Fiction Growing Up & Facts of Life Literature & Fiction Funny
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Critic reviews

With Enid Blyton's magnificent descriptive powers, I felt like I was there at school with them, and loved every minute. The midnight freasts were so vivid I could almost taste them. Wonderful fun that stays with you for ever
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Loved every minute of this. The narration was superb and consistent. It bright back many memories of reading these books as a youngster.

Nostalgic

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Malory Towers is probably Enid Blyton's best and most worthy set of stories. The characters are complex and nuanced, the story is relatable and not dependent on smugglers, kidnappers or spies always turning up in the same exact same place as the heroes for the seventeenth successive set of school holidays and the location is well-researched and gorgeous in the imagination.

The performance by the reader is also fairly good, and I can usually tell which character is speaking before I am told, because of the way she plays their individual voices. If I had one criticism, it would be that her Scottish accent for Jean is very spotty. At least half the time, Jean sounds like she comes from Somerset or Wiltshire. This is a very small criticism, though.

As to the adaptation, it is hit and miss, but mostly hit. I have been used to various publishers snipping and chopping Enid Blyton's work for many years now in an effort to make it more acceptable to faint, modern hearts. (Who in reality aren't Blyton's modern readers, but her publishers!) In my opinion, only one was ever necessary: the use of a certain word in Five Go Off To Camp that nowadays is the worst racial insult of them all. I was prepared therefore for this edition of Malory Towers to be similarly chopped and changed. Imagine my surprise then when I hear the characters talking about spending shillings and threatening to spank a misbehaving girl with a hairbrush! My jaw practically hit the floor! Are they going to keep the original text exactly as Blyton intended? Well, no, they didn't. That first reference to corporal punishment remained intact, but two subsequent ones have been changed from "spank" to "scold", which comes across as rather ridiculous, as the original, rather hysterical reaction remains the same. This is my one substantial beef with how this has been adapted. If the subject is too sensitive for modern eyes and ears, why do they leave some of it in? I find the whole attitude of social censorship rather ridiculous, to be honest. As the recent TV series (which shocked me with how good it was) makes clear, the stories are set in the nineteen forties and fifties. It does no eager reader any damage to time travel a bit and learn how things used to be done. It doesn't endorse the practice in the real, modern world and Blyton never, so far as I remember, ever directly depicted it, except for one occasion in a Five Find-Outers novel, which wasn't at all graphic, anyway. She just usually had characters worry about it or be threatened with it.

All in all however, well worth the time; especially with three stories bundled in together.

Almost perfect....

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This is a fun story! But sometimes it can get annoying! But love it overall! Definitely get it to use when your bored trying to go to sleep or when your on a walk! It’s just so..... fun!
9.5/10!!!

LoVe iT

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I love this book as it really shows you to make sure if you like someone try and find out more about them. They may not be as they seem.
I love the parts in this where Felicity bumps into Irene.
I reckon end this to anyone who wants a knew adventure when you are stuck at home doing nothing. This is a book to sit down with and travel to this knew place.
I rate this 4 stars ⭐️ ⭐️⭐️⭐️!!!!!

SUPRER MY FAVOURITE YET🥰📖❤️🥰🥰🥰🥰❤️🥰❤️

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I have loved these books since childhood. I relate a lot to Irene and Belinda, but also to poor Mary-Lou, being scared of everything. Love all the characters. Excellent narration helps.

Such fun

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