“The robust world of female education.”

The Terror of St Trinian’s is the story of what happens when two St Trinian’s schoolgirls are rivals for the love of a playboy school inspector. Head girl, Chloe Languish, is the subject of a report submitted to the Board of Education by Mr Rupert Rover, Inspector of Secondary Schools. Rover’s glowing report mentions that Chloe is a “dream of pure intoxication,” But, heiress Angela Menace, popular rabble-leader at St Trinian’s, is convinced that Rupert Rover prefers her. Rupert Rover is banished to Mudcaster High in darkest Shropshire until the St Trinian’s scandal blows over. Mr Rump, the President of the Board of Education, imagines that sending Rover to Shropshire will solve the scandal, and in Mudcaster High–a school full of notoriously unattractive females, Rover “won’t run no risks in that dump.”

So Rover is banished to the North, and life at St Trinian’s “moved in its terrifying fashion towards the end of the Summer Term.” The high spirited pupils of St Trinian’s engage in all sorts of madness and mayhem–Chemistry Mistress, Miss Whiff, is the victim of bottom scorching by a Bunsen burner wielded by a naughty pupil, and Art Mistress, Miss Irksome is deprived of her red flannel underwear with savage regularity. With pupils named Stinkeroo Tracy, Opal Mildew, and Babs Gherkin, the horror of St Trinian’s unfolds against the backdrop of the school with its fresco “illustrating Suffering, Joy, Heroism, Endeavour, Achievement, and Ecstasy in the sphere of female Rugby football.”

While the book lacks the visual advantage of the St Trinian’s films, the ample number of cartoons accompanying the text will appease St Trinian’s fans. The book also provides the glorious history of St Trinian’s. Founded in 1875, the school was the scene of a number of bloody student uprisings in 1881, 1897, 1905, 1919, and 1928. The 1928 uprising was the most vicious of the lot, and “three mistresses refusing to surrender” fell victim to the schoolgirl mob. Experiments with nitro-glycerine resulted in a number of mysterious explosions, and St Trinian’s proud history cannot account for many missing professors who simply disappeared….. I recommend this book for fans of St Trinian’s ONLY–it’s an acquired taste.