Has anyone ever tried to date the La Rochelle books. I’m trying to figure out where they would sit in relation to the CS series. I’m guessing Gerry Goes to School would be before School at as Gerry is a contemporary of Grizel but after that I get confused with all the gaps. Can anyone help?

Julie Lucy is born at the end of Janie of La Rochelle, so that should coincide with Head Girl as she's a similar age to David Russell, but none of it seems to work. Barbara should be about a year older than Josette, and Janice the same age as Ailie, but none of it really fits!

Sorry for being totally unhelpful .

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Yes! You can sort of step backwards through the series to get relative timelines.

A Head Girl's Difficulties takes place in fall through summer, starting three years from the start of Gerry Goes to School (easily figured out from the ages of the characters). The Maids of La Rochelle starts in the fall, and goes through to the end of the following summer. The end parts of Maids takes place just after the end of Head Girl's Difficulties, so the two books are concurrent.

Seven Scamps takes place one year after the end of Maids/Head, and covers May through September. This also easily matches with people's ages.

Heather leaves school takes place from late summer to just after Christmas of the same year, with a postlude in late June. From people's ages, it starts one year after the end of Seven Scamps.

Janie of La Rochelle takes place from June to July of the following year (so just over a year). The gap from the previous books is a bit harder to calculate (EBDisms), but is roughly 2 years from the end of Heather Leaves School.

Janie Steps In starts six years after the end of Janie of La Rochelle, based on the ages of the various kids. The book itself covers a year, taking place from fall to fall. The end of the book is just before the beginning of the second half of Exile (the school is mentioned as opening soon).

So Janie Steps In takes place mostly in the gap between the two halves of Exile. Janie of La Rochelle then overlaps with the first year of the Chalet School. That would make Gerry about 21 or so when she visits with Grizel, which is reasonable.

If you attach numbers, the second half of Exile is in the fall of 1939. Then Gerry Goes to school would take place in the fall of 1922, Head Girl's/Maid in fall 1925 to summer 1926, Seven Scamps in the summer of 1927, Heather in the summer of 1928 to summer 1929, Janie of La Rochelle in summer 1931 to summer 1932, and Janie Steps in in the Fall of 1938 to summer 1939.

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Beth and Daisy are about the same age. I think Daisy is 12 in the second half of Exile which is late 1939. so Beth born about 1926/7. I think she's a baby in Seven Scamps so that would fit. Janice and Ailie are a major EBD-ism - Janice is born in Goes to it when the triplets are a few months old, and Ailie in Rescue when they are nearly 4 ! Judy is born around the end of Janie steps in so is only about 8/9 months older than Janice which is OK, though I think they both age downwards towards Ailie to become a couple of years younger than the triplets.

Ivohenry wrote


That's when it gets complicated! Thank you for your help Jennifer!
One issue I'm still trying to figure out though is how Mr Atherton was able to have children with his wife when he was a POW in Germany for 3 years (as mentioned in Head Girl's Difficulties). There doesn't seem to be a gap of this much between any of the children.

I wouldn't worry about attaching absolute dates to the series - there aren't many reference to outside dates in the CS related books, and the ones that are there don't agree particularly well with each other. I just find that attaching a date relative to 1939 makes it easier to visualize.

For the tie-ins in particular. With absolute dates, the adults should be seriously worried about the prospect of war, particularly with David Willoughby in the Navy, but there's no mention of it. Lost Staircase, Monica Turns Up Trumps and Chudleigh hold should take place early in the war, but don't.

And even in the main series, Mystery, Rosalie and Tom should be set during the war, but there's no mention of it.

EJO does something similar. Her relative dates are much clearer than EBD, but she wrote each book set in the time she was writing it. So you have two books a few years apart in story-space (like The Girl Who Wouldn't Make Friends and New Girls at Wood End), where one has telegraphs and horse buggies, and the other telephones and cars.

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Ring the bells that still can ring; Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything; That's how the light gets in
Anthem: Leonard Cohen

Yes, clearly I need to realise that it is EBD who has written the book after all I was just hoping there wouldn’t have been EBDisms like this in one of her earliest works