Groosham Grange
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| Author | Anthony Horowitz |
|---|---|
| Illustrator | |
| Cover artist | Paul Davies |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Series | Groosham Grange |
| Genre | Fantasy, adventure fiction, mystery |
| Publisher | Methuen Publishing |
Publication date | 1988[1] |
| Media type | Print (hardback, paperback) ebook, audiobook |
| Pages | 128 |
| ISBN | 0-416-10172-0 Search this book on  . |
| Followed by | Return to Groosham Grange |
Groosham Grange is a 1988 fantasy novel by English author Anthony Horowitz and the first novel in the Groosham Grange series. It follows the adventures of twelve-year-old David Eliot, who gets sent to a mysterious school called Groosham Grange and where he eventually learns he is the seventh son of a seventh son. Aimed at a similar audience of that of Horowitz's The Diamond Brothers series, it was partially based on the years Horowitz himself spent at his boarding school and his own unhappy childhood. This book went on to win the 1989 Lancashire Children's Book of the Year Award.[2] and later the French Prix Européen du Roman Pour Enfants ("European Award for Children's Fiction") in 1993.
In 1999, a sequel entitled The Unholy Grail (later reissued as Return to Groosham Grange), was released. Horowitz had always intended for Groosham Grange to be the basis for a series, but he revealed to a fan on Twitter in 2021 that while he did indeed have plans to continue the series with a third book, he was dissuaded after the success of the Harry Potter series.[3]
Plot[edit]
David Eliot is a 12 year old boy who’s arrived home for the Christmas holidays. He’d just been expelled from Beton College (a parody of Eton College) and nervously tells his parents the bad new. Upon hearing the news, his father reacts rather badly, forcing David to take refuge in his room to avoid the commotion. The next morning, a letter is delivered to the Eliot household that offers David a place at a mysterious new school that’s bizarrely described having an emphasis on discipline in nearly the exact same way that David’s father was just telling his wife.
After David’s father makes all the necessary arrangements. David is then sent to this new boarding school called Groosham Grange immediately via a train that very same day, despite the fact that it is during the period when schools are closed for the Christmas holidays. On the train, he befriends a boy called Jeffrey and a girl named Jill Green, who are both in the same odd situation as him. Jeffrey was expelled for being caught smoking behind the cricket locker rooms (the misunderstanding being that he was set on fire, not that he was smoking cigarettes). The letter Jeffrey’s parents received describes Groosham Grange as the perfect college for their son, but this time around it is explains that the school is akin to a military training camp. Meanwhile, Jill had just ran away from her old boarding school, and her parents also received a letter praising the school's merits and describing it as a chic college for young girls.
As the three children are talking about their new boarding school, a vicar enters their compartment. After playing a number of religious songs (much to the three’s displeasure), has a heart attack when the three children tell him they are going to attend Groosham Grange, much to their astonishment. On the station platform, they meet Gregor, a hunchback with one eye who is the school’s porter. He drives them to a pier where they take a boat to the island. The ship's captain, Captain Bloodbath, ferries them to Skrull Island (a parody of Skull Island), which is where Groosham Grange is located.
On the island, David is received by Mr. Kilgraw and is told that he must write his name in a book where other names have already been written. Strangely, Mr. Kilgraw makes David injure his thumb while giving him a quill to write with, and David is forced to sign his name into the book with his own blood.
As the days go by, David starts noticing some very weird things about the school. The students are all too well behaved and the staff is made up of some rather odd teachers. Eventually, David and Jill begin to suspect that the students at the school aren’t even using their names, and that their teachers are a monster of some kind, be it a werewolf, a vampire, a mummy and a ghost. Every night, the students also get out of their beds and suddenly disappear from the school without a trace.
Characters[edit]
- David Eliot – He is the protagonist of the story. He is a seventh son of a seventh son, something which he doesn't realise the significance of until it's too late.
- Jill Green – A seventh daughter of a seventh daughter that David meets and befriends on the train ride to Groosham Grange. She was initially against attending Groosham Grange even more than David was, and made plans to run away many times until she accepted her destiny as a witch.
- Jeffrey – An overweight boy with a stammer and a rather timid personality. Like David, he is the seventh son of a seventh son. He eventually becomes much more confident when he accepts his destiny as a witch, even going so far as to stop stammering.
- Edward and Eileen Eliot – The rather eccentric parents of David Eliot. They have been married for 29 years. Both Mr. and Mrs. Eliot are vegetarians, something which David dislikes seeing as he isn't rather fond of vegetables. Edward Eliot is a head of a bank in the City of London, who’s described as short and fat, sports a spiky mustache, and a has a wart on the back of his neck. Eileen Eliot is described as very thin and is a head taller than her husband. It is revealed that Edward Eliot uses an electric wheelchair because of how often his father used to cane him in order to discipline him. Despite this rather violent upbringing, he recalls these memories rather fondly, to the point that he also occasionally injures his wife in a similar manner without realising it because of his rather twisted perception of affection. Mr. Eliot is also shown to be rather quick to anger, often going to rather extreme lengths in an effort to try and discipline his son David.
- Mr. Kilgraw – The deputy headmaster. He's a vampire who keeps blood in a fridge in his office and makes all the new students sign their name in blood. It is mentioned that he is rather adept at hypnosis, since he had to hypnotise Jeffrey when it came to his turn to sign his name in blood due to the fact that Jeffrey took a pencil and two bottles of ink with him to avoid doing so.
- Mr. Teagle and Mr. Fitch – They are the school heads. They possess the same body but have two distinct heads due to the results of a freak accident.
Minor Characters[edit]
- Gregor: A rather deformed hunchback with only one eye who is a parody of Dr. Frankenstein’s assistant Igor. He is employed as the handyman and porter of Groosham Grange. As a result of his rather terrifying looks, Gregor once tried to join a freakshow, but was deemed so ugly that he was considered “overqualified”.
- Captain Bloodbath: A very typical-looking pirate lookalike who is the naval officer that ferries David, Jill and Jeffrey aboard his boat to reach Skrull Island. He loses both of his hands during David's daring escape from Groosham Grange towards the end of the book.
- Miss Pedicure: The English and History teacher at Groosham Grange who also happens to be a mummy. It is heavily hinted that she was quite friendly with William Shakespeare when he was alive.
- Mr. Creer: The young-looking religious studies and modelling teacher at Groosham Grange. He’s described as short with curly hair and a neat moustache. He somehow drowned off Skrull Island in 1985, which is how he ended up becoming a ghost. His body is buried in the school cemetery. David noted that he smells rather strongly of seaweed.
- Mrs. Windergast: An elderly witch who is also the school matron. Her husband died from a septic wound.
- Monsieur Leloup: The French teacher at Groosham Grange who is actually a werewolf. He's described as a rather small, bald and unassuming man at the beginning of the month, but eventually turns into a rather hulking, hairy figure just around the time of the full moon before returning to his original form.
- Mr. Netherby: A school inspector whom Jill manages to reach out to via a message in a bottle in order for him to come and inspect Groosham Grange in an effort to get him to shut it down. He’s described as being a thin, neat man with spectacles and a grey suit.
- Mr. Horace Tobago: A fat and jolly travelling salesman who sells practical jokes and magic tricks. He picks up David when he saw him hitchhiking in Norfolk after running away from Groosham Grange. He drives a bright red Ford Cortina.
Elements[edit]
Groosham Grange[edit]
Groosham Grange is a school of evil magic. It's based on a remote island called Skrull Island off the Norfolk coast and even has secret underground passages. It acts as a GCSE school to fool the authorities and even the parents who put their children in Grange are not informed about the involvement of magic. The school consists of teachers who are all mythical creatures. Mr. Kilgraw is the Deputy Headmaster and is a vampire. Mrs. Windergast teaching the subject of "General Witchcraft" is an elderly witch. The school only enrolls the seventh son of a seventh son, or the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter, because they can perform magic. After the son or daughter is found to have been competent enough to continue, they are given a black ring, signifying they can control magic. In fact, all the pupils are forced to sign the admission register with their blood.[4]
Similarities to Harry Potter series[edit]
A lot of critics (and Horowitz himself) have since noted certain similarities between the Groosham Grange novel and the newer Harry Potter series written by J. K. Rowling. These similarities include having both central characters being mistreated by their parental figures who receive an unexpected letter from an isolated gothic boarding school which reveals itself as a school for wizards and witches; having a teacher who is a ghost and a werewolf character named after the French word for "wolf" (Lupin/Leloup); and passage to the school via railway train.[5] Despite this, Horowitz merely thanked Rowling for her contribution to the development of the young adult fiction in the UK.[6]
References[edit]
- ↑ https://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0416024629/ref=nosim/authordatabase
- ↑ "Lancashire Children's Book of the Year". Archived from the original on 26 June 2007. Unknown parameter
|url-status=ignored (help) - ↑ "https://twitter.com/anthonyhorowitz/status/1393624307876704256". Twitter. Retrieved 2021-06-07. External link in
|title=(help) - ↑ reads, good. "Groosham Grange (Groosham Grange #1) by Anthony Horowitz". goodreads. Retrieved 30 January 2014.
- ↑ Whited, Lana A. (2004). The Ivory Tower and Harry Potter: Perspectives on a Literary Phenomenon. University of Missouri Press. ISBN 978-0-8262-1549-9. Search this book on
- ↑ "YOZONE : Anthony Horowitz sur la Yozone - (Cyberespace de l'imaginaire". www.yozone.fr. Retrieved 2021-06-07.
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