Fascinated by your thoughts on The Governess. I too have considered reading it for history-of-boarding-school-story purposes, and... okay, I'll still probably end up doing that... but it will be good to go into it with expectations suitably tailored to the fact that the genre changed a great deal later on. (Although Character has a moral fault which s/he overcomes remains a boarding school staple right up through Enid Blyton.)

Delighted that you're giving the Worrals books a try! They're not as femslashy as they could be, which is a pity, but I do enjoy the whole Girls Own Adventure thing they've got going on. More books ought to indulge in secret passages.

I will look forward to your post about Villette! A strange and captivating book indeed.