Dorita Fairlie Bruce (20 May 188521 September 1970) was a Scottish children's author who wrote the popular Dimsie series of books published between 1921 and 1941. Her books were second in popularity only to Angela Brazil's during the 1920s and 1930s. The Dimsie books alone had sold half a million hardback copies by 1947.
Early life Dorita Fairlie Bruce, was born as Dorothy Morris Fairlie Bruce, in Palos, Heulva, Spain, on 20 May 1885, to Alexander Fairlie Bruce (7 September 185720 January 1944), a Scottish civil engineer, and Katherine (Kate) Elizabeth Fairbairn (c.18611931), the daughter of William Freebairn of Drummilling, West Kilbride, Ayreshire. Alexander was working on the Heulva waterworks in Spain at the time. The early years in Spain resulted in Dorothy being known as "Dorita".
Bruce's early childhood was spent in Scotland, first at Blanefield among the Campsie Hills, Stirling, an area that was to feature in many of her early stories, and then at Blairgowrie, Perthshire, where her brother Alan Cathcart Fairlie Bruce (2 March 189410 October 1927) her only sibling, was born. In 1895 her father got the contract to build the Staines Reservoirs, next to what is now Heathrow Airport and the family moved south to Ealing in west London.
After moving to London Bruce was sent to a boarding school at Clarence House in Roehampton, the model for Dimsie's school, the 'Jane Willard Foundation'. Many of her holidays were spent with relations in Scotland, particularly the Firth of Clyde area around Largs in Ayrshire, which was later to become her particular literary landscape. Her mother's family lived in West Kilbride, a few miles south of Largs.
At the time of the 1901 census, the family were living at 28 Inglis Road in Ealing. By the 1911 census the family have moved to 27 Boileau Road in Ealing, which was to remain the family home until at least 1944 when Bruce's father died there.
Bruce's paternal grandmother, Roberta Cadell, was a daughter of Robert Cadell, Sir Walter Scott's publisher, who is mentioned briefly in her historical novel, A Laverock Lilting. The Cadell family genealogy is available online.
Apart from her writing, Bruce seems to have led a life similar to that of many other unmarried middle-class women of her time, devoted to family duties and voluntary work. She looked after her invalid mother and later her ageing father, and helped to bring up her brother's three children after his early death. For more than 30 years, from about 1916 to the late 40s, she was engaged in the Girls' Guildry. This was a uniformed girls' organisation founded in 1900 by Dr William Francis Somerville and originally associated with the Church of Scotland, but later spread over other parts of Britain and the Empire. She was for a period in the 30s President of its West London Centre. She contributed factual articles to the Lamp of the Girls' Guildry magazine and Girls' Guildry plays a role in her Nancy series and gets a mention in her Dimsie series. In July 1965 The Girls' Guildry merged the Girls' Life Brigade Service of England and the Girls Brigade of Ireland to become the Girls' Brigade.
Bruce was above all, in spite of all her years in London, a Scottish writer. She often went back to Scotland for holidays, as witnessed by the detailed descriptions of the landscape in her many books set there. Not until 1949 was she free to move back to Scotland, to the big house she had bought in Upper Skelmorlie in the northern part of Ayrshire. In this house with its marvellous view of the Firth of Clyde, and named 'Triffeny' after one of her own books, she spent the last 21 years of her life, dying there aged 85 on 21 September 1970.
Writing Like so many other writers she started writing at an early age and is said to have won a competition for poetry at the age of six. The first time she used her pen name 'Dorita' was in small hand-written magazines. After leaving school she wrote a great number of poems and short stories in various genres for juvenile periodicals and anthologies from about 1905. Most of her short stories are set in Scotland, like the 'Regiment' stories, about two children and their pets living with their grandmother in the Campsie Hills. This is also partly the setting of the long historical romance "Greenmantle" (The Girl's Realm, 1914–15).
Her first known school story, "The Rounders Match" (The Girl's Realm, 1909) is set in a school, 'St. Hilary's', vaguely reminiscent of Clarence House. The three early 'Jane's' short stories ("The Jane-Willard Election" (1911), "The Terra-Cotta Coat", "For Mona's Sake", 1911–18) – set before the arrival of Dimsie herself – would eventually lead up to her first novel, The Senior Prefect (1921), later renamed Dimsie Goes to School.
She was a pioneer in creating series of books which followed a group of girls throughout their schooldays and even beyond. Her Dimsie, Nancy and Springdale series all follow this pattern, which was widely imitated.
The Colmskirk sequence, a set of nine novels for young adults, widened her scope, dealing with a group of families in the Scottish countryside around Largs from the seventeenth century to the twentieth.
Books and series The following lists of books are based on a search on the Jisc Library Hub Discover. supported by other sources (as indicated) including Sims and Clare, D. L Kirkpatrick, R. Kirkpatrick, and Abe Books. The reading order shown for each series (in the Ord. column of the tables) is taken from Sim and Clare.
One feature of the different series, other than the Sally series, is that characters from one series appear in other series. Dimsie and her friends appear in the Springdale books, while Anne and Primula are the principal characters in Dimsie Carries On. They also appear briefly in Nancy at St. Bride's. One girl from Maudsley is mentioned in Dimsie Intervenes, and another is a principal character in Toby at Tibbs Cross. Characters from the Dimsie series reappear in The School on the Moor. Lastly we meet Primula Mary in the last Colmskirk book, The Bartle Bequest, as if Colmskirk were not another incarnation of the Redchurch of her own school.
Dimsie Bruce's best known books are the nine 'Dimsie' books (1921–41), seven of them set in the 'Jane Willard Foundation' ('Jane's') in Kent, the other two in Dimsie's family home, 'Twinkle Tap' on 'Loch Shee' (Gael. 'Loch of the Fairies') in Argyll. Any exact site has never been identified. Jane's is situated on the Kentish coast, most likely at St. Margaret's Bay, but the buildings are clearly modelled on Bruce's own old school, Clarence House. The school stories follow Dimsie (Daphne Isabel Maitland) from 10 year old Junior to popular head girl. The Dimsie books are famous for the 'Anti-Soppists', a group of six girls acting for the good of the school.
Two of the Dimsie books, Dimsie Intervenes (1936), and the final book Dimsie Carries on (1941) were written in response to readers' requests and letters.
In the last book, Dimsie Carries on (1941), set during WW2, she is married to Dr Peter Gilmour, has two children and makes medicines from her own herb garden. The books were not published in the correct reading order. The Dimsie books were very popular. Half-a-million Dimsie books had been sold by 1947.
The twelfth book listed below, Dimsie Takes Charge, is outside the series and was a collection of all of the short stories featuring Dimsie and the Jane Willard Foundation that had appeared in annuals and story books, published to celebrate the centenary of Bruce's birth. The same collection was published in 2011 as Dimsie and the Jane Willard Foundation. (ISBN 9781847451064) by Girls Gone By Publishers with the original texts.
+Books by Dorita Fairlie Bruce in the Dimsie series Ser. Year Title Illustrator Location Publisher p. Ord. Note 1 1920 The Senior Prefect AKA Dimsie goes to school Walter Paget London OUP 270 p. ill., 8º 1 2 1921 Dimsie Moves Up Walter Paget London OUP 254 p. ill., 8º 2 3 1922 Dimsie Moves Up Again, etc Gertrude Demain Hammond London OUP 288 p., 8º 3 4 1923 Dimsie among the Prefects, etc Gertrude Demain Hammond London OUP 288 p., 8º 4 5 1924 Dimsie Grows Up, etc Henry Coller London OUP 288 p., 8º 7 6 1925 Dimsie, Head-Girl, etc Mary Strange Reeve London OUP 280 p., 8º 5 7 1927 Dimsie Goes Back, etc Mary Strange Reeve London OUP viii, 277 p., 8º 8 8 1932 The Dimsie Omnibus London OUP 3 parts, 8º 9 1933 The New Dimsie Omnibus London OUP 3 parts, 8º 10 1937 Dimsie Intervenes M. D. Johnson London OUP 286 p., 8º 6 11 1942 Dimsie carries on W. Bryce Hamilton London OUP 254 p. ill., 8º 9 12 1985 Dimsie Takes Charge Wendover Goodchild 224 p., 8º 10
The St. Bride's and Maudsley (Nancy) series Her second series of school stories may be seen as two different series connected by the character of Nancy Caird. The three 'St. Bride's' books are set in an island in the 'Hebrides', more or less identical with Great Cumbrae opposite Largs. The first book, The Girls of St. Bride's (1923), actually takes place a few years before the arrival of Nancy. The five 'Maudsley' books, on the other hand, are set in a day school in a town in southern England, probably based on Farnham in Surrey, where Nancy spends a few years between her two sojourns at St. Bride's. The Maudsley books are probably the most significant manifestations of the Girls' Guildry in girls' fiction. The last Nancy book, Nancy Calls the Tune (1944) is another 'adult' sequel, about life in a small town in Scotland, probably Crieff in Perth, during the War.
+Books by Dorita Fairlie Bruce in the St. Bride's and Maudsley (Nancy) series Ser. Year Title Illustrator Location Publisher p. Ord. Note 1 1923 The Girls of St. Bride's, etc Henry Coller London OUP 288 p., 8º 1 2 1925 That Boarding School Girl Roy London OUP 160 p., 8º 3 3 1926 The New Girl and Nancy, etc Mary Strange Reeve London OUP 288 p., 8º 4 4 1927 Nancy to the Rescue London OUP 159 p., 8º 5 5 1931 The best bat in the school D. Osborne London OUP 95 p., 8º 6 6 1933 Nancy at St Bride's M. D. Johnson London OUP 288 p., 8º 2 7 1935 Nancy in the Sixth M. D. Johnson London OUP 288 p., 8º 7 8 1937 The Dorita Bruce Omnibus London OUP 3 parts, 8º 9 1938 Nancy Returns to St. Bride's, etc M. D. Johnson London OUP 288 p., 8º 8 10 1944 Nancy calls the Tune Margaret Horder London OUP 192 p., 8º 9
The Springdale series The six 'Springdale' books are Bruce's most Scottish school stories, set in the little seaside resort 'Redchurch', without a doubt modelled on Largs. But Springdale is a far larger school than 'Jane's', a more typical English public school with five, later six, different houses and a more complex prefect system. These books follow the little group of friends around Anne Willoughby and Primula Mary Beton through their schooldays, from new juniors to prefects. Anne's elder sister Peggy and some of her contemporaries are among the principal characters in the first three books.
+Books by Dorita Fairlie Bruce in the Springdale series Ser. Year Title Illustrator Location Publisher p. Ord. Note 1 1928 The New House-Captain, etc Mary Strange Reeve London OUP 288 p., 8º 1 2 1930 The Best House in the School, etc Mary Strange Reeve London OUP 287 p., 8º 2 3 1932 Captain of Springdale, etc Henry Coller London OUP 288 p., 8º 3 4 1934 The new house at Springdale M. D. Johnson London OUP 288 p., 8º 4 5 1935 The Springdale Omnibus London OUP 3 parts, 8º 6 1936 Prefects at Springdale, etc M. D. Johnson London OUP 288 p., 8º 5 7 1939 Captain Anne, etc London OUP 288 p., 8º 6
The Toby and Sally series
Her last two sets of school stories are shorter, the 'Toby' books set in two very different schools, The School on the Moor on Dartmoor, and The School in the Wood in the New Forest respectively, with another 'War' sequel, Toby at Tibbs Cross.