At a Victorian girls' boarding school rigid with class hierarchy, one Irish girl decides to tear it apart. Kathleen O'Hara arrives at the Great Shirley School with fire in her blood and defiance in her smile, immediately unsettling a world where foundation girls, those on scholarship, exist in a separate, inferior sphere from the paying students. When Kathleen befriends Ruth Craven, a kind-hearted foundation girl who has learned to accept her place, she refuses to acknowledge the invisible walls that divide them. Her wilful, impulsive nature won't submit to the school's strict expectations, and soon her rebellions echo through the corridors, drawing the attention of the headmistress and governors. An inquiry follows. Kathleen's refusal to curb her spirit, to bend where she knows she shouldn't, becomes both her greatest flaw and her finest quality. Written in 1902, this is a school story with real teeth, exploring what happens when a girl decides that the rules were made for breaking.
