School may be out but you can bet some of these headmistresses - think Miss Trunchbull - never take a break from terrorising their charges. From Malory Towers to A Little Princess, Esme Kerr picks the best and worst of fictional female heads
It is at the “majestic” Miss Pinkerton’s Academy for Young Ladies, set behind a “great iron gate” on Chiswick Mall, that we find Becky Sharp at the start of Vanity Fair, having just completed her studies and preparing to set out for the grander horizons of Russell Square. To her reverent admirers, Miss Pinkerton is “the Semiramis of Hammersmith, the friend of Doctor Johnson, the correspondent of Mrs. Chapone herself”; to Becky she is a tiresome old bore. Life at the academy is a daily “battle between the young lady and the old one”, and when Becky finally escapes she takes the dictionary Miss Pinkerton’s sister has given her, and throws it from the window of her coach.
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