The non-school books - are they worth the effort?

[tosomja.livejournal.com]

I read all the four school Marlow books as a child and absolutely loved them, read them 100s of times etc.  Now I have rediscovered them and realised only for the first time that there were others - I just thought that all the references to the holidays and falcons etc were things which happened 'off-stage', as it were.  So I acquired a version of the GGB Thuggery Affair, but found it really hard going and nothing like as good as the school books.  In fact I gave up once altogether, and then came back to it and managed to finish but wasn't hugely impressed..  I have also acquired The Ready Made Family which I enjoyed much more, but still, not as much as the school books. 
Given that it requires a fair amount of time and money to acquire the rarer Marlow books, it is really worth the struggle? Or are the school books the most popular for a reason?  What do you think - does anyone actually prefer the non-school books?   I don't want to spend a lot of effort on them only to wish that I'd kept to the school books and kept my memories of AF as good as they were!

And also what do you think of the historical ones? Are they as good, and do they connect to the later Marlows in any way apart from the characters being called Marlowe?

Comments

[ex-lizzzar998.livejournal.com]

I read on the Folly interview that can be found on the Antonia Forest website (sorry I am too technically incompetent to do the link - I'll try to learn- but you should find the website if you search "antonia forest") that AF's personal favourites were the historicals and Peter's Room, and I think they are definitely worth a read. Actually I think that anything written by her is worth a read, although I know her books can be hard to come by/expensive.
As far I know (haven't recently checked) some of the Girls Gone By reprints are not hugely expensive, and could probably be found second-hand through dealers on Amazon or ABE books. The Player's Boy, I believe, is the only AF non-school (Autumn Term is in print) in print through Girls Gone By on Amazon, but you might want to wait until they print the Players and the Rebels too, as they are two parts of the same story (unless The Player's Boy goes out of print). Anyway, don't be too put off by the Thuggery Affair - the thuggery dialect is hard to follow - apparently it was originally worse, before it got to an editor!