1. Miss Pinkerton in Vanity Fair by William Thackeray

It is at the “majestic” Miss Pinkerton’s Academy for Young Ladies, set behind a “great iron gate” on Chiswick Mall, that we find Becky Sharp at the start of Vanity Fair, having just completed her studies and preparing to set out for the grander horizons of Russell Square. To her reverent admirers, Miss Pinkerton is “the Semiramis of Hammersmith, the friend of Doctor Johnson, the correspondent of Mrs. Chapone herself”; to Becky she is a tiresome old bore. Life at the academy is a daily “battle between the young lady and the old one”, and when Becky finally escapes she takes the dictionary Miss Pinkerton’s sister has given her, and throws it from the window of her coach.



2. Miss Agatha Trunchbull in Matilda by Roald Dahl

Miss Agatha Trunchbull’s disciplinary methods for the “blithering idiots” and “stagnant cesspools” in her charge at Crunchem Hall Primary School include hurling them out of windows and locking them in The Chokey, a cupboard lined with “sharp, spikey nails”. She once threw a girl called Amanda Thripp over the fence by her pigtails, and hurled a boy out of a fifth floor window for eating licorice all sorts. “Thank goodness we don’t meet many people like her in this world, although they do exist and all of us are likely to come across at least one of them in a lifetime,” the narrator pessimistically explains.

The star of Jill Murphy’s The Worst Witch books, Mildred Hubble, seen here in chatting with her best friend Maud. Illustrator: Jill Murphy Photograph: PR

3. Miss Cackle in The Worst Witch by Jill Murphy

The most powerful headmistresses, of course, have no need of threats or tirades, but can quell the unruliest classroom with the slightest frown. Miss Cackle, the kindly headmistress of Miss Cackle’s Academy for Witches, located in an old castle on top of a mountain, is an exemplar of the genre. In contrast to the Academy’s “horrifically strict” Potions Teacher Miss Hardbroom, Miss Cackle’s power lies in her popularity, which inspires every child with a dread of displeasing her. Her mild rebukes - “You must be the worst witch in the entire school … It’s just not good enough, my dear” – are always delivered with a patient sigh, but leave the squirming Mildred Hubble feeling “about an inch high”.

4. Miss Minchin in A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett

When the seven-year-old Sara Crewe arrives at Miss Minchin’s Select Seminary for Young Ladies in London, she notes that her headmistress was “very like her house, tall and dull, and respectable and ugly. She had large, cold fishy eyes, and a large, cold, fishy smile”. In an age crowded with villainous teachers, it is Miss Minchin’s passionless avarice that makes her stand out from the fog: on being told that Sara’s father has died, leaving his daughter orphaned and penniless, she seizes all the child’s possessions and flings her into the attic to work as a servant: “You will have no time for dolls in the future. You will have to work and improve yourself and make yourself useful,” is how she tells Sara that her father is dead.

5. Miss Grayling in Malory Towers by Enid Blyton

Strict, sensible and adored, Miss Grayling is best known in the Malory Towers series for her welcoming speeches, in which she inspires her new recruits with her hope that they will, under her tutelage, turn from inky-fingered school children into women the world can lean on: “One day you will leave school and go out into the world as young women. You should take with you eager minds, kind hearts, and a will to help. You should take with you a good understanding of many things, and a willingness to accept responsibility and show yourselves as women to be loved and trusted. All these things you will be able to learn at Malory Towers”. Stirring stuff - but meanwhile there’s the French mistress to persecute.

6. Mademoiselle Julie in Olivia by Dorothy Strachey

Olivia describes a 16-year-old English girl’s infatuation with Mlle Julie, the headmistress of a finishing school outside Paris, who reads Racine and floats off to parties with her cloak thrown back to show “the shimmer of bare neck and lace and satin”. There are no midnight feasts, pranks or pillow fights; just tears, tantrums and – for all the fervent atmosphere of eau de Cologne and sodden handkerchiefs – a sense of truth. How can one write, the narrator asks breathlessly, “without laying bare one’s soul?” Originally published anonymously, Olivia is Dorothy Strachey’s only novel and appeared in the Catholic index of banned books.

7. Miss Brownlow in Saplings by Noel Streatfeild

This grown up-novel about children, by a children’s writer, examines the catastrophic effect of a father’s death during the blitz on a previously secure and happy middle-class family. Miss Brownlow, the daughter’s headmistress, recognises the degree of the blow and does her best to soften it. But she is an example of the compassionate professional who is nonetheless humble about what she doesn’t know. The scene where she takes Laurel for a drive and encourages her to cry is especially powerful.

8. Miss Arundel in The Third Miss Symons by FM Mayor

At school Henrietta Symons responds to the attention Miss Arundel pays to her work by developing a violent crush. Many years after leaving school, Henrietta writes to her, and is dashed to receive a completely impersonal reply. Later still she bumps into her at a lecture, and has tea with her. Each of these encounters illustrates a gulf between two types of spinster – Miss Arundel, busy and fulfilled; and “Etty”, under-employed, unloved and increasingly unloveable.

9. Mother Radcliffe in Frost in May by Antonia White

‘They’re wonderfully business-like nuns,’ the nine-year-old Nanda Grey’s father advises her as she arrives at her convent boarding school for the first time. “It’s all nonsense about their being dreamy and unpractical and out of touch with the world.” Mr Grey’s words ring true five years later, when – with steely efficiency - Mother Radcliffe expels Nanda on discovering that she has been secretly writing a novel. “Every will must be broken completely and re-set before it can be at one with God’s will”, Mother Radcliffe tells the crushed 14-year-old before casting her out into the world.

10. Miss Mackay in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark

Miss Mackay stands as a corrective to all the others on this list – a reminder that there is power without charisma, and that sometimes it triumphs.

Mischief at Midnight is the second novel in Esme Kerr’s boarding school mystery series. The sequel to The Glass Bird Girl, the first in Kerr’s Knight’s Haddon series, Mischief at Midnight is a classic but contemporary tale which is perfect for readers looking for a modern Malory Towers.

Buy Mischief at Midnight at the Guardian bookshop