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. 

WWW Wednesday – January 12, 2022

WWW Wednesday is hosted by Taking on a World of Words.

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?

I just began The Path to Power by Robert Caro, the first of his five (planned) volumes about Lyndon Johnson. Last week, my former-law-clerks book group discussed a New Yorker article by Caro about LBJ with our judge, which motivated me to begin Volume 1, purchased about ten years ago, at the recommendation of my father.

The Lark in the Morn by Elfrida Vipont

Title: The Lark in the Morn (Haverard Family #1)
Author: Elfrida Vipont
Publication: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, hardcover, 1970 (original UK publication 1948)
Genre: Middle grade fiction/series

UK paperback edition

A Coronet for Cathie by Gwendoline Courtney

Title: A Coronet for Cathie 
Author: Gwendoline Courtney

Publication: Thomas Nelson, hardcover, 1950

Genre: Children’s Fiction

Plot:  Following a long illness, 15-year-old Cathie learns she is the heir to the duchy of Montford.  Worried about Cathie’s health, her aunt had sought out the girl’s estranged grandfather, the Duke of Montford, to seek his help.  At the lavish estate in Exmoor, the ailing Duke lives conveniently long enough to meet Cathie and revise his will; when she wakes up, she is the Duchess.  While Aunt Bet returns to school teaching, Cathie is welcomed by her uncle-in-law/new guardian, crusty but kindhearted Colonel Rushton and his three outgoing children, who bring out the lively side of Cathie’s personality.  As Cathie regains her health, her demure sparkle and sense of fairness endear her to all.   There are adventures with a spiteful governess, interaction with loyal retainers and sycophantic neighbors, a holiday in Devon, and, finally, a day school where Cathie is able to quietly overcome the snobbishness that has become pervasive merely by being herself.   Nearing 17 at the end of the book, Cathie has matured, is healthy enough to ride horseback and win at a coconut shy, and is taking responsibility for her tenants’ wellbeing and vowing to be trained in estate management.

Audience: Fans of classic English fiction, especially those who enjoy a rags to riches theme.

My Impressions:  You know how much I like orphan stories, and this one is delightful, full of well-depicted characters and a winsome heroine.  Cathie’s bemused acceptance of her inheritance is a little like Queen Victoria’s, “I will be good.”   If there weren’t modern accoutrements such as motor cars and telephones, it would be easy to imagine this story taking place in the 19th century instead of (presumably) the 1950s.  This is partly because Cathie’s illness is so over the top, requiring footmen to carry her about and a loyal retainer who shoos everyone away whenever Cathie’s eyes droop.  I do, however, like her gruff guardian who is relieved his son hasn’t inherited the title, wants the best for Cathie, and learns from his mistakes.   It is hard luck on devoted Aunt Bet, who has to leave the niece she has brought up since the age of 5, continuing her career as an educator when her niece has become one of the richest landowners in the country.  A pity the Duke didn’t provide her with a modest bequest!

Cathie makes friends easily and at school seeks out the smartest girl in the class, although Ruth is looked down on by the affluent students because she is poor:

Helena flushed angrily . . . “But you’re new here, and perhaps you don’t understand.  St. Agatha’s used to be a most select school until Miss Morris came with all her new-fangled ideas.  Well, naturally we can’t argue with her, but we can show what we think of things by refusing to accept girls like Ruth Neale---”

“What’s the matter with her?” asked Cathie in the same meek tone, though there was a warning gleam in her grey eyes if only Helena had noticed it.  She was so angry that her usual shyness was forgotten; besides, it was amazing how much courage she derived from the knowledge that if Helene knew her real identity she would behave very differently.  Somehow, knowing that, none of this really mattered; it was just like acting a part in a play.

Helena glared at her. “Her father’s a blacksmith!” 

“I don’t see what difference that makes to Ruth,” Cathie objected gently.  “I like her, so that’s all that matters.”

Heroine alert!   The best ones always have grey eyes and are kind to their vassals.  And no one likes a snobbish head girl, Helena!  Just as Sara Crewe effortlessly becomes a leader at Miss Minchin’s, Cathie, masquerading under an alias but using her resources (an empty barn on the estate that can become a clubhouse), comes out of her shell to unify the girls who dislike the cliquish behavior of the school leaders (this is partly noblesse oblige and partly just good training by unappreciated Aunt Bet).  A real princess thinks of others and treats everyone fairly, whether down on her luck like Sara or newly ascended to the nobility like Cathie.   Cathie is solicitous of those around her and, while we don’t see as much of her inner thought processes as of Sara’s, they share the ability to inspire those around them.

The Montford holdings are enormous (a house in London, another in Leicestershire (a hunting lodge, perhaps) and a big place in Scotland), not to mention the land surrounding the castle – when Ruth comes to thank the Duchess for assisting her family, we learn she bicycled 15 miles from her family’s modest estate cottage!  It is fortunate that Cathie has been brought up modestly and is dismayed by those who fawn over her status, although by the end of the book she is “beginning to feel that it did not matter much where she was plain Catherine Sidney or the Duchess of Montfort.  In either case, she felt capable of dealing with the [snobs] of the world.”   Ironically, of course, her grandfather must have been one of those snobs, as he quarreled irrevocably with Cathie’s father for marrying beneath him.

This was a reread inspired by Scott from Furrowed Middlebrow and when I was emailing him about this book, my spellcheck kept changing the title to “A Coroner for Cathie.”  As Scott pointed out, that would be a very different book indeed!

Source: Personal photocopy from kindhearted ET.  I should have bought a copy from Girls Gone By during the brief window when it was back in print but I didn't realize until it was too late.  It is hard to find and copies are expensive.  As far as I can tell, the only book by Gwendoline Courtney that was published in the US is Those Verney Girls, which I also recommend.

Off the Blog: Thanks for the sympathy for my car disaster!  My brother and brother-in-law have been very generous with cars and rides when needed but I am relieved to have found a new-to-me Toyota and plan to take possession of it this week. 

Boarding School (Book Review)

Title: Boarding School
Author: Regina Woody  Illustrator: Janet Kimball
Publication Information: Houghton Mifflin Company, hardcover, 1949
Genre: Juvenile Fiction/School Story

Plot: Having grown up in Europe, Abby Hawes is now ready for high school and has enrolled in the boarding school her mother once attended, Waban Hall Academy in Maine. Her year is full of academic challenge, basketball, ballet, new friends, and boarding school traditions that sometimes mystify Abby. She longs for a best friend she can trust but instead has an untrustworthy roommate and teachers who never seem to be looking out for her interests.

What I liked: As everyone knows, I love boarding school stories and had been curious about this one for some time. It seemed more realistic than many in the genre because of the emphasis on Abby’s academic struggles (unsurprising as she has not attended school before). Mrs. Woody also made sure the reader got a taste of all the traditions that make the school story genre so appealing: new girls, midnight feasts, girls going out of bounds, tricks (nice and not), teachers that see right through the students, trips to the infirmary, drama (not just the kind on stage), friendships, and finally a comeuppance for Abby’s rotten roommate. I’ve never come across this illustrator before but enjoyed her drawings.

What I disliked: Abby is so immature that it is hard to warm to her as a heroine. She’s always feeling sorry for herself, has little self-confidence due to a controlling mother, and for most of the book she is a victim to her nasty roommate (either too clueless or too honorable to tattle, even when accused of going to meet a strange boy in her nightgown). And she is so slow getting ready every morning! Oddly, the book had the feel of a sequel: the author referred to Abby’s family and friends as if the reader should know them. I wondered if there was yet another book by Woody I had missed. However, this one was not really worth the trouble I had gone to obtain it; it was pleasant but not incredibly memorable.

Source: Although I’d read Woody’s novels about aspiring dancers (including Ballet in the Barn, which Peter Sieruta once wrote about), I had never come across this book. Given my love of boarding school stories, I’d been interested for a while and was delighted when my library was able to obtain it via InterLibrary Loan. Thanks to the Boonslick Regional Library in Missouri for lending it halfway across the country.

Peggy Parsons at Prep School (Review)

Title: Peggy Parsons at Prep School
Author: Annabel Sharp

Publication Information: M.A. Donohue & Company, 1915

Genre: American Girls’ School Story

Plot:  Peggy is a vivid girl with brown-gold hair, laughing black eyes, and cheeks that are red through their tan.  She makes friends easily and loves a midnight feast and (although academics are rarely mentioned in such novels) at one point she writes an essay that is praised by her English teacher.  This is her first year at the Andrews and as an orphan she is dependent on the generosity of an aunt.  Peggy goes from one scrape to another, always running afoul of the stern headmistress, tossing a rosebush on a serenading Glee Club from prestigious Amherst College, spending so long primping that she is left behind from a school outing, and getting lost in a blizzard (see cover).  However, her kindness in visiting a lonely old gentlemen, presumed indigent by the neighborhood, results in a valuable friendship.  Naturally, once I knew that the old gentleman was estranged from his daughter and grandson, I expected Peggy would engineer a reunion and was not disappointed.

What I liked: The author manages to incorporate some delightful boarding school traditions in this book: handsome college men serenading dormitory rooms, bacon bats, theatre excursions, trips to dances at Annapolis, and best of all – fudge!

“Let’s have all the girls we can pack into the room in for a midnight celebration,” suggested Katherine as soon as they had flung off their coats in their own room.

“Good girl,” chirruped Peggy.  “About ten people – our most special own crowd.  Hurry up and be ready for dinner – and is there any butter out on the window ledge?
Katherine craned her eager head out of the window into the cold. “Not a bit,” she said.  “We have a can of condensed milk left, though.”

“Fine,” cried Peggy, counting off on her fingers the butter, the sugar, and the alcohol – “for I don’t think suppose there is any alcohol, is there, friend infant?”

“’Fraid not,” sighed Katherine.

From this an outsider might suppose that the girls were planning to concoct some sort of intoxicating beverage for their innocent little midnight party.  But it was only the preliminary preparation for the inevitable fudge.  And the alcohol was to run the chafing-dish, and not to go into it.

What I disliked: Alas, the book was very predictable and the characters were not well developed.  In addition, for a poor orphan Peggy was warm hearted but heedless, asking her aunt to send her to college regardless of expense.  She didn't do very much to earn her good fortune.

Sequel:  Peggy Parsons, A Hampton Freshman is available via Project Guttenberg

Source: I bought this book many years ago but I don’t remember where.  In addition to my long-standing interest in school stories, I was probably intrigued because my godmother’s name was Peggy Parsons.

The Mockingbirds by Daisy Whitney

Alex is a junior at a prestigious boarding school, a dedicated musician, and the sort of person that rarely pays attention to the daily gossip and chit-chat of school life because she is so focused on her long term goal, which is Juilliard. All that ends when she is date raped by a classmate she barely knows, and becomes the unwilling subject of gossip and slurs. Although Alex wants to go on with her life and avoid being a victim, she has many questions about what really happened to her that night and to what extent she was complicit (if she was).

Children's Favorites

The problem with completing Elizabeth Bird's Top Ten Middle Grade Chapter Book list is twofold: 1) that it took far too long, when I should have been doing at least a dozen other things; 2) my choices might be totally different if compiled at some other time (and that doesn't even take into account my question of whether a series counts). I was disappointed not to meet her at ALA but assume she is a kindred spirit. . .
1-A Little Princess/Burnett (all my favorite genres in one: orphans, historical fiction, school story)
2-Anne of Green Gables/Montgomery (the ultimate orphan)
3-A Traveler in Time/Uttley (time travel, and one of my other favorite things, Elizabethan England)
4-Betsy-Tacy series (if I had to pick just one, I guess Betsy and Joe)
5-Masha/Mara Kay (not very well known but adored by anyone who read it, orphans and school story)
6-Charlotte Sometimes/Farmer (school story and time travel and I think she’s an orphan too)
7-The Wolves of Willoughby Chase/Aiken (orphans almost always a theme with Aiken)
8-Ballet Shoes/Streatfeild (although Skating Shoes a close second) (more orphans)
9-Knight’s Castle/Eager (although it is hard to pick my favorite Eager between this and Seven Day Magic and The Time Garden)
10-Diamond in the Window/Langton (yet more orphans)

Runners-Up
Time at the Top/Ormondroyd
The Lark and the Laurel/Willard (first in one of my all time favorite series)
The Prydain series/Alexander
Emily series/Montgomery (Powell’s has these in YA but AOGG in middle grades-as a series I like these better but AOGG beats them out individually)
Emmy Keeps a Promise/Chastain
Autumn Term/Forest (I am tempted to count this but did not read it until grown up)

Best School Stories

Here is an article from the London Times with a top 25 boarding school stories - most of which I agree with (a few I have not read!):

5) The Autumn Term, Cricket Term and Attic Term by Antonia ForestForest wrote only 13 novels, all but one connected with the Marlow family. Ten of them were about the Marlow children, beginning with the Autumn Term (written in 1948) and were fabulous tales of the six girls and two boys. They deserve to be better-known. I particularly remember Nicola and Lawrie, the two youngest sisters, who didn't quite live up to the standards of their hugely successful older sisters at Kingscote, the family boarding school.Autumn Term, and its sequels, The Cricket Term and the Attic Term and were funny, beautifully written, and seemed far more realistic than many of the other boarding schools books around (especially when it came to the relationship between all the sisters).

Madeleine L'Engle

A lot has been written about Madeleine L'Engle since her death last Thursday, some in appreciation of her children's books and some in appreciation of her more religious or adult work. I was privileged to meet her in 1990 at an autographing for The Glorious Impossible at the old Scribner's, then a Brentano's on Fifth Avenue. She signed the picture book but now I wish I had asked her to sign the beautiful Giotto inspired poster that went with the book, and which I later had framed. There were so many people in line (I remember the group behind me had driven all the way from KY) that we did not get more than a minute or two with the author but it was still very exciting to talk to her. She seemed interested to hear that my favorite book was And Both Were Young, which she said was an unusual choice and was partially based on her own boarding school experience.

A Washington Post writer in a nice tribute implies that we readers love Meg Murry because she is like us: awkward and gangly. That may be true but it ignores two important things - 1) all of L'Engle's heroines are slightly awkward - they are mostly late bloomers, quirky and intelligent, and 2) A Wrinkle in Time is about much more than Meg and her teenage angst. L'Engle wrote about Meg, not so her readers could identify with a heroine but because she saw herself in Meg and because there was a strength in Meg that transcends the science/magic in that novel. Meg's sister Suzy, much prettier and more easily brilliant, is never the heroine (although memorable in her own way; I did quote her feelings about eating pigs in an animal rights paper I wrote several years ago).

Similarly, Flip, in And Both Were Young, at first inarticulate and awkward, eventually blossoms in an alien environment once she gains confidence. Encouraged by a French boy she meets on the mountains and by an art teacher who recognizes her talent, she becomes the means through which all the other characters are fulfilled. She actually changes and matures more than Meg, although less dramatically. Although this book is part of the boarding school genre I love, it is by far one of the best, both in its realistic portrayal of the negative aspects of school life and its cast of diverse and multidimensional characters (including the actual presence of an attractive teenage boy).

One article, written by a family friend, quoted her as saying, "Did you ever realize that if you spell live backwards you come up with the word evil?" she once said with a devilish grin. "To live, you know, you have to be just a teeny bit evil and wicked."

That is my kind of author!

Back to School with Bully

I had forgotten that my friend Bully shares my love of school stories and PG Wodehouse; he has been reviewing a Wodehouse a week since April without telling me. This week he is reading a book I barely knew existed, Tales of St Austin's, written (or at least published) by old Pelham in 1903. As you can tell from the photo, Bully is a well traveled plush, having been on the Tube as well as the NY subway and Boston MBTA (known to us locals as the T). He was gracious enough to pose with me about 18 months ago, between literary and other endeavors.

Bully describes the collection thusly: "There's twelve short stories here, plus four short essays on boarding school life, and they're all excellent examples of very early Wodehouse gung-ho adventure and good gentle humor. His romances are definitely in the future...there's no sign of a beating heart in these stories, unless it's out of nervousness over an upcoming exam...but there's an easily-recognizable frivolity of language and devil-may-care atmosphere, complete with a handful of genially mild twist endings that are nevertheless the prototypes for his later, more complicated works." I am excited about Bully's plans to share his impressions of every Wodehouse title since I have only read about a third of them (I hate to admit it but many of them have blurred in my mind).

Very foolishly, when I worked at Penguin, and could have got every (in print) Wodehouse for free, I was worried about the inadequate shelf space of my NYC apartment and refrained. Maybe I was also temporarily turned off by the fact that a Lady Constance is both a prominent and villainous character in what seems like many of the books! Now I regret it, and since he wrote 93 books it will take me much longer to collect them than it will take Bully to reread and review them.