Evelyn Finds Herself by Josephine Elder, for the #1929Club

Title: Evelyn Finds Herself
Author: Josephine Elder
Publication: Oxford University Press, hardcover, 1929
Genre: Juvenile fiction/school story
Setting: Britain

Description: Elizabeth and Evelyn, now in the Upper Fifth at Addington High School, have been best friends since they were seven. They are fierce competitors at hockey and tennis, and are also strong students, working towards scholarships at Cambridge.  Now, as they are poised to become leaders of the school, their relationship is disrupted by Madeleine, a new student who is gifted at sports but more frivolous than Elizabeth and Evelyn. Elizabeth’s admiration for the newcomer baffles Evelyn, who initially puts up with doing things as three but, as they progress to the Sixth Form, she slowly realizes she needs to make her own way, develop other friendships, focus on her studies, and follow a code of honor that makes sense to her.

My Impression: Evelyn Finds Herself is considered among the finest of the genre by Sue Sims, editor of The Encyclopedia of Girls’ School Stories, as it depicts a young woman maturing and learning how to cope with life’s challenges in a realistic school setting. The book covers Evelyn's last 3-4 years at school and her realization that her interests and values are moving in one direction and no longer coincide with those of her best friend. The experience is all the more stressful because Evelyn deals with the worry and loneliness primarily by herself. Addington High School is not a boarding school and Evelyn spends much of the book on her bicycle, pedaling back and forth from home to school or school to hockey practice in great distress. Her parents are oblivious, the headmistress does not even have a name, and the only person who notices Elizabeth’s deterioration as a friend is the astute Constance, a classmate whom “Evelyn and Elizabeth called their Diplomatic Agent because she had a useful habit of knowing everything that was going on and reporting it to them,” but she at least tries to be supportive.  Anyone who has gone through the loss of a friendship will identify with Evelyn's feelings, although ultimately the girls' relationship survives with new expectations.

Most school stories focus on the girls and their jolly times, not their academics, so it is particularly interesting that Evelyn and Elizabeth are focused on STEM long before it was a trendy acronym. Evelyn is interested in medicine so is studying science while Elizabeth prefers maths. Both need scholarships in order to attend Cambridge and Evelyn distracts herself from the growing estrangement from her friend by studying all the harder. Unfortunately, because so few girls share her interest, she spends most of her time working alone in a lab until a brilliant young teacher arrives during her final year. This not only better prepares Evelyn for her university exams but also provides the academic spur she needed:

Evelyn began to feel stimulated, then; to taste the same cold, sparkling joy that came to her when her mind got to grips with a Chemistry problem. This was what she wanted – not praise, which made one rest on one’s laurels, but criticism, which pricked one on to greater effort. Praise was sloppy. Her eyes gleamed, and she listened intently.

Elder herself studied medicine at Girton so Evelyn’s preparation for university is presumably accurate. According to Sims, Elder began writing to supplement her income when patients were reluctant to patronize a female doctor.

Although Evelyn is scornful of the crushes the younger girls have on the prefects and of Elizabeth’s preference for the superficial but good-at-hockey Madeleine, she herself starts to hero-worship the new science mistress, Miss Yeo. Elder distinguishes this relationship from an earlier description of a teacher trying to become popular with the girls by showing that Miss Yeo is supporting Evelyn’s interest in science, rarely gives advice, and does not care if the students like her. Luckily, she is not teaching Organic Chemistry! Incidentally, I noticed Elder refers to the girls taking their “home-work” to the garden instead of the library in good weather; usually British books refer to “prep.”

Even when lonely and hurt that her best friend no longer shares her values or commitment to the school’s ideals, Evelyn’s growing maturity gives her the strength to go against the more outgoing and confident Elizabeth:

[Evelyn] knew that the disagreement was a deep one; that Liz wasn’t right and she wasn’t wrong, this time. She was sure, inside her prickly school-girl shell, that kindness was the most important thing in the world, and that it wasn’t fair to hit rabbits like Rachel when they were down; and Liz didn’t agree.

Defending Rachel, a timid Head Prefect, is not only the right thing to do but also supporting her prepares Evelyn to one day take and be worthy of that role herself.

Katrina at Pining for the West also reviewed Evelyn Finds Herself earlier this year.  Elder's other books are not quite as impressive as this one but are enjoyable and Girls Gone By Publishers reprinted Evelyn and others recently. 

This is my final read for Simon and Karen’s 1929 Club. I also reviewed The Seven Dials Mystery recently and The Crime at Black Dudley some years ago.

Source: Personal copy