Now that the excitement of Christmas is over, and we're having a lull before the New Year festivities begin, I am enjoying browsing my Christmas book haul! I received a very pleasing number of books including three 1st edition Brent Dyer Chalet titles - The School at the Chalet, The Chalet School in Exile and The New Chalet School. All of the books have the full complement of Nina K Brisley illustrations and are complete and unabridged. I am anticipating a very pleasurable rereading of some of my very favourite books.
I can still remember the exquisite pleasure I derived from reading Brent Dyer's books so many years ago - the first title I ever bought, and read, was Eustacia Goes to the Chalet School. I enjoyed the characters and the setting so much that I quickly started acquiring as many of the series as possible. Back in the 1970s the only easily available editions were paperback Armadas - which were great but had big chunks of the text missing. Also Armada didn't publish the full series either. So began my book collecting habit! My first find was in a bookshop in Liverpool, Philip, Son and Nephew - long since disappeared - and was a brand new, never read, Althea Joins the Chalet School. It had been languishing so long on an almost hidden shelf that it was still priced in "old money"! I was thrilled and totally bitten with the book collecting bug. Over the years I collected every Brent Dyer title, as well as many other authors, but decided, this year, to upgrade the early titles to 1st editions. Now my collection is complete thanks to Father Christmas!
