Angela Brazil
Encyclopedia
Angela Brazil (30 November 1868 – 13 March 1947) was one of the first British writers of "modern schoolgirls' stories
", written from the characters' point of view and intended primarily as entertainment rather than moral instruction. In the first half of the twentieth century she published nearly 50 books of girls' fiction, the vast majority being boarding school stories. She also published numerous short stories in magazines.
Her books were commercially successful, were widely read by tween
girls, and influential upon their readers. While interest in girls school stories waned after World War II
, her books remained popular until the 1960s. They were seen as disruptive and a negative influence on moral standards by some figures in authority during the height of their popularity, and in some cases were banned by headmistresses in British girls' schools.
While her stories have been much imitated in more recent decades, and many of her motifs and plot elements have since become clichés or the subject of parody, they were innovative when they first appeared. Brazil made a major contribution to changing the nature of fiction for girls. She presented a young female point of view which was active, aware of current issues and independently minded; she recognised adolescence as a time of transition, and accepted girls as having common interests and concerns which could be shared and acted upon.
. She was the youngest child of Clarence Brazil, a mill manager, and Angelica McKinnel, the daughter of the owner of a shipping line in Rio de Janeiro
, who had a Spanish mother. She was the youngest of four siblings including sister Amy, and two brothers, Clarence and Walter.
Her father Clarence was distant, seldom involved himself in his children's affairs, and saw himself primarily as a provider for the material well being of the family and responsible for ensuring the children was appropriately schooled in religious tradition. She was primarily influenced by her mother, Angelica, who had suffered during her Victorian English schooling, and was determined to bring up her children in a liberated, creative and nurturing manner, encouraging them to be interested in literature, music and botany, a departure from the typical distant attitude towards children adopted by parents in the Victorian era. Angela was treated with great affection by her sister Amy from an early age, and Amy effected an immense, perhaps dominating influence on Angela throughout her life.
The family moved around the mill towns of south-east Lancashire
, following her father's work opportunities. They lived in Manchester
and Bolton
, before settling in Bury
.
She was briefly at Manchester Secondary School and finally at Ellerslie, a fairly exclusive girls' school, where she boarded in her later adolescence.
Her memories of her own schooldays were her most treasured, and she retained aspects of that period of her life into her adult years:
Her post school education was at Heatherley School of Fine Art
in London, where she studied with her sister Amy. It is possible she took a position as a governess
, but mostly lived with her family. After her father's death, in 1899, the family moved to the Conwy valley, and she traveled with her mother in Europe.
She began writing seriously for children in her 30s. Her first school story was The Fortunes of Phillipa, which was based on the experiences of her mother. It was not published until 1906, and her first published children's novel was A Terrible Tomboy (1904).
She moved to 1 The Quadrant, Coventry
in 1911, with her brother and they were joined by her sister Amy upon their mother's death in 1915 Brazil became a well known figure in the local area.
She was well known in Coventry high society as a hostess and threw parties for adults, with a greater number of female guests, at which children's food and games were featured. She had no children of her own but also hosted many parties for children.
She read widely and collected early children's fiction; her collection is now in Coventry
library. She took great interest in local history and antiquities, and also involved herself in charity work. She was an early conservationist, taking an interest in both the preservation of land and monuments, worked for the City of Coventry Cathedral, the Y.W.C.A and was a founding member of the City Guild.
She never married.
She was quite late in taking up writing, developing a strong interest in Welsh mythology, and at first wrote a few magazine articles on mythology and nature-–due most likely to spending holidays in a cottage in Wales.
He first publication was a book of four children's plays entitled The Mischievous Brownie. Written in Wales, and published in 1899 by T. W. Paterson of Edinburgh, the plays featured fairies, ogres and enchantments. Family and friends encouraged her to write a novel for an adult audience, but she had already set her heart on writing for children. She began work on her first full length tale for children, The Fortunes of Philippa in the same year, after her Father's death.
Her first published novel was A Terrible Tomboy (1905), but this was not strictly a school story. The story was autobiographical, with Brazil represented as the principal character Peggy, and her friend Leila Langdale, appearing as Lilian. It was an early success for Brazil, and did well in the United States
, perhaps as a result of the popularity of Tomboy stories, which had grown in popularity in that country since the mid 19th Century.
Her long sequence of school stories did not commence until the publication of her second novel The Fortunes of Philippa (1906). The novel was based on her mother, Angelica Brazil, who had grown up in Rio de Janeiro
and attended an English boarding school at the age of 10, finding the English culture, school life and climate confronting.
The Fortunes of Phillipa was an instant success, and Brazil soon received commissions to produce similar work. In total she published 49 novels about life in boarding schools, and approximately 70 short stories, which appeared in magazines. Her average production of these tales was two novels and five short stories each year.
Her fifth novel, Bosom Friends: A Seaside Story (1910) was published by Nelson's, but subsequent books were all published by Blackie and Sons. Blackie and Sons sold three million copies of her novels. Her most popular school story novel, The Nicest Girl in The School (1909) sold 153,000 copies. By 1920 the school story was the most popular genre for girls.
Unlike many of her successors, Brazil never wrote a series of books set in a particular school, although there are three pairs of books among her 46 full-length school stories: A Fortunate Term/Monitress Merle, At School with Rachel/St Catherine's College and The Little Green School/Jean's Golden Term. Monitress Merle also has a substantial character overlap with The Head Girl at the Gables and A Fortunate Term has a slight connection with The Girls of St Cyprian. Most of her novels present new characters, a new school and a new scenario, although these are frequently formulaic, especially in the books written later in her career.
Her schools usually have between 20 and 50 pupils and so are able to create a community which is an extended family, but also of sufficient size to function as a kind of micro state, with its own traditions and rules. The schools tend to be situated in picturesque circumstances, being manors, having moats, being built on clifftops or on moors and the style of teaching is often progressive, including experiments in self expression, novel forms of exercise, and different social groups and activities for the girls.
The narrative focuses on the girls, who tend to be between 14 and 15. Although they are high-spirited and active, they are not eccentric or directly conflicting with social norms, as had been the case with Tomboy fiction. They are adolescents, shown as being in a normal period of transition in their lives, with a restlessness that tends to expressed by minor adventures such as climbing out of dormitory windows at night, playing pranks on one another and their teachers and searching for spies in their midst. They also typically develop their own behavioural codes, have a slang or secret language, which is exclusive to the school.
The stories tend to focus on relationships between the pupils, including alliances between pairs and groups of girls, jealousy between them, and the experience of characters who feel excluded from the school community. Events which have become familiar from the girls school fiction written since Brazil, are common, such as secret night-time meetings, achieving and receiving honors or prizes and events at the end of term such as concerts.
In addition to her books, she also contributed a large number of school stories to children's annuals and the Girl's Own Paper
.
by Sarah Fielding
, published in 1749, is generally seen as the first boarding school story. Fielding's novel was a moralistic tale with tangents offering instruction on behavior, and each of the nine girls in the novel relate their story individually. However it did establish aspects of the boarding school story which were repeated in later works. The school is self contained with little connection to local life, the girls are encouraged to live together with a sense of community and collective responsibility, and one of the characters experiences a sleepless night, a standard motif in subsequent girls' fiction.
Fielding's approach was imitated and used as a formula by both her contemporaries and other writers into the 19th century. Susan Coolidge in What Katy Did at School (1873) and Frances Hodgson Burnett
, with Sara Crewe: or what Happened at Miss Minchin's (1887) (later rewritten as A Little Princess
) also used a girl's school setting. A character Brazil's The Third Class at Miss Kaye's quotes these novels as an example of the sort of rigid Victorian
environment she had been expecting to find at boarding school. However, probably the most widely read and influential of Brazil's 19th century predecessors in girls' fiction, was L. T. Meade. Meade was voted most popular writer in 1898 by the readers of Girls' Realm and used some innovations in her girls school stories which were later developed by Brazil.
While popular with girls, Brazil's books were not approved of by many adults and even banned by some headmistresses, seeing them as subversive and damaging to young minds. In 1936 Ethel Strudwick, principal of St Paul's Girls' School
in London, reacted to a novella about the school by announcing at morning prayers that she would gather all of Brazil's books and set them alight.
Brazil's own fiction also changed to reflect developing attitudes and changing social mores and the changing expectations of her readers. Her stories written before 1914, the beginning of the First World War, lean more towards issues of character that were typical in Victorian fiction for girls. Those written after this become more critical of this approach, and the heroines more liberated, in parallel with changing possibilities and attitudes towards girls and their potential to become more active in wider aspects of society.
, and Charles Hamilton
, who wrote under a number of pen names, including Frank Richards
, as author of the successful Greyfriars School
series. Anthony Buckeridge
later wrote the Jennings
books. Themes between boys' and girl's school fiction had some commonality, such as sports, honour, and friendship.
It has been claimed that the appearance of girls' boarding school stories was a response to a parallel development of the equivalent for boys in the same period, and there are certainly elements of boys stories, such as Tom Brown's Schooldays
by Thomas Hughes
, and the Greyfriars tales by Frank Richards, appear to have been borrowed by writers of girls stories, including Brazil. However this may accord an undue influence to this literature, as there had been a gradual development from the 18th century toward fiction which was more specifically focused on gender.; and many of the tropes in Brazil's books derive from the real-life schools attended by early 20th-century girls.
There were also male readers of Brazil's works, although they tended to consume these books secretly and guiltily. These including a number of prominent figures, who confessed to liking the stories in childhood, later in life. This was also a period in which girls' high schools and boarding schools were developing, drawing on aspects of the longer- established boys' boarding schools, but also developing their own culture which was more focused on encouraging friendship and security: elements which many boys, not attracted to the culture of tough masculinity in boys' schools, could relate to. There may also have been as aspect of voyeuristic attraction in boys reading stories about an environment exclusively focused on girls.
series draws upon many elements of English public School education fiction that Brazil's work helped to establish.
Towards the end of the 20th century girls' school stories had in many respects become seen as a cliché, with standard character types such as the oddball but courageous new girl and the practical but fair headmistress, and recurring scenes such as a midnight feast, pranks, heroic rescues and concert at the end of term. Many parodies of these types of stories have been produced. However, when Brazil first wrote schoolgirl tales she was simply not repeating established norms in fiction for young women, and her approach (together with other girls' writers of this period) was innovative and actually establishing new ideas about girls' lives, which were simplified and turned into stock motifs by later writers.
Popular writers of girls' school stories who certainly read Angela Brazil's books include Elinor Brent-Dyer
with her Chalet School
series, and Enid Blyton
with her tales about Malory Towers
and St Clares
. Brent-Dyer, whose first volume in the Chalet School
series appeared in 1925, published 57 more books in the series and these books were still selling 150,000 copies a year in the late 1990s. Dorita Fairlie Bruce
and Elsie Oxenham should also be mentioned. Despite the fact that many of these stories included archaic motifs and representations, they still remain popular.
School story
The school story is a fiction genre centering on older pre-adolescent and adolescent school life, at its most popular in the first half of the twentieth century. While examples do exist in other countries, it is most commonly set in English boarding schools and mostly written in girls and boys sub...
", written from the characters' point of view and intended primarily as entertainment rather than moral instruction. In the first half of the twentieth century she published nearly 50 books of girls' fiction, the vast majority being boarding school stories. She also published numerous short stories in magazines.
Her books were commercially successful, were widely read by tween
Preteen
Preadolescence is a stage of human development following early childhood and prior to adolescence. It may be defined as ending with the beginning of puberty or with the beginning of the teenage stage, the time frames in which adolescence is considered to begin. In terms of age in years,...
girls, and influential upon their readers. While interest in girls school stories waned after World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, her books remained popular until the 1960s. They were seen as disruptive and a negative influence on moral standards by some figures in authority during the height of their popularity, and in some cases were banned by headmistresses in British girls' schools.
While her stories have been much imitated in more recent decades, and many of her motifs and plot elements have since become clichés or the subject of parody, they were innovative when they first appeared. Brazil made a major contribution to changing the nature of fiction for girls. She presented a young female point of view which was active, aware of current issues and independently minded; she recognised adolescence as a time of transition, and accepted girls as having common interests and concerns which could be shared and acted upon.
Earlier life
She was born in Preston, Lancashire in 1869, during the Victorian eraVictorian era
The Victorian era of British history was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. It was a long period of peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities and national self-confidence...
. She was the youngest child of Clarence Brazil, a mill manager, and Angelica McKinnel, the daughter of the owner of a shipping line in Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro , commonly referred to simply as Rio, is the capital city of the State of Rio de Janeiro, the second largest city of Brazil, and the third largest metropolitan area and agglomeration in South America, boasting approximately 6.3 million people within the city proper, making it the 6th...
, who had a Spanish mother. She was the youngest of four siblings including sister Amy, and two brothers, Clarence and Walter.
Her father Clarence was distant, seldom involved himself in his children's affairs, and saw himself primarily as a provider for the material well being of the family and responsible for ensuring the children was appropriately schooled in religious tradition. She was primarily influenced by her mother, Angelica, who had suffered during her Victorian English schooling, and was determined to bring up her children in a liberated, creative and nurturing manner, encouraging them to be interested in literature, music and botany, a departure from the typical distant attitude towards children adopted by parents in the Victorian era. Angela was treated with great affection by her sister Amy from an early age, and Amy effected an immense, perhaps dominating influence on Angela throughout her life.
The family moved around the mill towns of south-east Lancashire
Lancashire
Lancashire is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in the North West of England. It takes its name from the city of Lancaster, and is sometimes known as the County of Lancaster. Although Lancaster is still considered to be the county town, Lancashire County Council is based in Preston...
, following her father's work opportunities. They lived in Manchester
Manchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...
and Bolton
Bolton
Bolton is a town in Greater Manchester, in the North West of England. Close to the West Pennine Moors, it is north west of the city of Manchester. Bolton is surrounded by several smaller towns and villages which together form the Metropolitan Borough of Bolton, of which Bolton is the...
, before settling in Bury
Bury
Bury is a town in Greater Manchester, England. It lies on the River Irwell, east of Bolton, west-southwest of Rochdale, and north-northwest of the city of Manchester...
.
Schooling
She commenced her education at age four at Miss Knowle's Select Ladies School in Preston, but lasted only a half day. Having been brought up to express herself freely, she shocked the younger Miss Knowles by removing the teacher's hair pins while sitting on her knee, an action little in keeping with the strict disciplinarian ethos of the school. She was enrolled in The Turrets in Wallasey.She was briefly at Manchester Secondary School and finally at Ellerslie, a fairly exclusive girls' school, where she boarded in her later adolescence.
Her memories of her own schooldays were her most treasured, and she retained aspects of that period of her life into her adult years:
"To be able to write for young people depends, I consider, largely upon whether you are able to retain your early attitude of mind while acquiring a certain facility with your pen. It is a mistake ever to grow up! I am still an absolute schoolgirl in my sympathies"
Her post school education was at Heatherley School of Fine Art
Heatherley School of Fine Art
The Heatherley School of Fine Art was named after Thomas Heatherley who took over as principal from James Mathews Leigh . Founded in 1845, the school is affectionately known as Heatherley's...
in London, where she studied with her sister Amy. It is possible she took a position as a governess
Governess
A governess is a girl or woman employed to teach and train children in a private household. In contrast to a nanny or a babysitter, she concentrates on teaching children, not on meeting their physical needs...
, but mostly lived with her family. After her father's death, in 1899, the family moved to the Conwy valley, and she traveled with her mother in Europe.
Commencing writing
She first starting writing at age 10, producing a magazine with her close childhood friend Leila Langdale, which was modelled on Little Folks, a children's publication of the time she was very fond of. The two girl's 'publication' included riddles, short stories and poems. Both girls wrote a serial within their magazine, Brazil's was called Prince Azib. Later in life Brazil published in Little Folks.She began writing seriously for children in her 30s. Her first school story was The Fortunes of Phillipa, which was based on the experiences of her mother. It was not published until 1906, and her first published children's novel was A Terrible Tomboy (1904).
Move to Coventry
She spent most of her time with her mother until her death, and thereafter with her elder sister Amy, and brother Walter. She had only two major friendships outside the family circle, one of which started in her school days and the other in her 30s. Both friends were schoolgirls when the friendships first commenced.She moved to 1 The Quadrant, Coventry
Coventry
Coventry is a city and metropolitan borough in the county of West Midlands in England. Coventry is the 9th largest city in England and the 11th largest in the United Kingdom. It is also the second largest city in the English Midlands, after Birmingham, with a population of 300,848, although...
in 1911, with her brother and they were joined by her sister Amy upon their mother's death in 1915 Brazil became a well known figure in the local area.
She was well known in Coventry high society as a hostess and threw parties for adults, with a greater number of female guests, at which children's food and games were featured. She had no children of her own but also hosted many parties for children.
She read widely and collected early children's fiction; her collection is now in Coventry
Coventry
Coventry is a city and metropolitan borough in the county of West Midlands in England. Coventry is the 9th largest city in England and the 11th largest in the United Kingdom. It is also the second largest city in the English Midlands, after Birmingham, with a population of 300,848, although...
library. She took great interest in local history and antiquities, and also involved herself in charity work. She was an early conservationist, taking an interest in both the preservation of land and monuments, worked for the City of Coventry Cathedral, the Y.W.C.A and was a founding member of the City Guild.
She never married.
Writing and publication
He first publication was a book of four children's plays entitled The Mischievous Brownie. Written in Wales, and published in 1899 by T. W. Paterson of Edinburgh, the plays featured fairies, ogres and enchantments. Family and friends encouraged her to write a novel for an adult audience, but she had already set her heart on writing for children. She began work on her first full length tale for children, The Fortunes of Philippa in the same year, after her Father's death.
Her first published novel was A Terrible Tomboy (1905), but this was not strictly a school story. The story was autobiographical, with Brazil represented as the principal character Peggy, and her friend Leila Langdale, appearing as Lilian. It was an early success for Brazil, and did well in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, perhaps as a result of the popularity of Tomboy stories, which had grown in popularity in that country since the mid 19th Century.
Her long sequence of school stories did not commence until the publication of her second novel The Fortunes of Philippa (1906). The novel was based on her mother, Angelica Brazil, who had grown up in Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro , commonly referred to simply as Rio, is the capital city of the State of Rio de Janeiro, the second largest city of Brazil, and the third largest metropolitan area and agglomeration in South America, boasting approximately 6.3 million people within the city proper, making it the 6th...
and attended an English boarding school at the age of 10, finding the English culture, school life and climate confronting.
The Fortunes of Phillipa was an instant success, and Brazil soon received commissions to produce similar work. In total she published 49 novels about life in boarding schools, and approximately 70 short stories, which appeared in magazines. Her average production of these tales was two novels and five short stories each year.
Her fifth novel, Bosom Friends: A Seaside Story (1910) was published by Nelson's, but subsequent books were all published by Blackie and Sons. Blackie and Sons sold three million copies of her novels. Her most popular school story novel, The Nicest Girl in The School (1909) sold 153,000 copies. By 1920 the school story was the most popular genre for girls.
Style and themes
Angela Brazil is seen as the first writer of girls' school story fiction who wrote stories from the point of view of the pupils and whose stories were mostly intended to entertain readers, rather than instruct them on moral principals. She intended to write stories that were fun and included characters who were ordinary people. She wrote for girls gaining a greater level of freedom in the early 20th century and intended to capture their point of view.Unlike many of her successors, Brazil never wrote a series of books set in a particular school, although there are three pairs of books among her 46 full-length school stories: A Fortunate Term/Monitress Merle, At School with Rachel/St Catherine's College and The Little Green School/Jean's Golden Term. Monitress Merle also has a substantial character overlap with The Head Girl at the Gables and A Fortunate Term has a slight connection with The Girls of St Cyprian. Most of her novels present new characters, a new school and a new scenario, although these are frequently formulaic, especially in the books written later in her career.
Her schools usually have between 20 and 50 pupils and so are able to create a community which is an extended family, but also of sufficient size to function as a kind of micro state, with its own traditions and rules. The schools tend to be situated in picturesque circumstances, being manors, having moats, being built on clifftops or on moors and the style of teaching is often progressive, including experiments in self expression, novel forms of exercise, and different social groups and activities for the girls.
The narrative focuses on the girls, who tend to be between 14 and 15. Although they are high-spirited and active, they are not eccentric or directly conflicting with social norms, as had been the case with Tomboy fiction. They are adolescents, shown as being in a normal period of transition in their lives, with a restlessness that tends to expressed by minor adventures such as climbing out of dormitory windows at night, playing pranks on one another and their teachers and searching for spies in their midst. They also typically develop their own behavioural codes, have a slang or secret language, which is exclusive to the school.
The stories tend to focus on relationships between the pupils, including alliances between pairs and groups of girls, jealousy between them, and the experience of characters who feel excluded from the school community. Events which have become familiar from the girls school fiction written since Brazil, are common, such as secret night-time meetings, achieving and receiving honors or prizes and events at the end of term such as concerts.
In addition to her books, she also contributed a large number of school stories to children's annuals and the Girl's Own Paper
Girl's Own Paper
Girl's Own Paper was a British story paper catering for girls and young women, published from 1880 until 1956.- Publishing history :The first weekly number of the Girl's Own Paper appeared on January 3, 1880. As with its male counterpart the Boy's Own Paper, the magazine was published by the...
.
Antecedents and influences
Brazil did not invent the story of boarding school life, although she was a major influence over its transformation. There was already an established tradition of fiction for young women, in which school life was presented as a crucible for their development. The Governess, or The Little Female AcademyThe Governess, or The Little Female Academy
The Governess, or The Little Female Academy by Sarah Fielding is the first full-length novel written for children, and a significant work of children's literature of the 18th century.In her preface, the author says:-Bibliography:...
by Sarah Fielding
Sarah Fielding
Sarah Fielding was a British author and sister of the novelist Henry Fielding. She was the author of The Governess, or The Little Female Academy , which was the first novel in English written especially for children , and had earlier achieved success with her novel The Adventures of David Simple...
, published in 1749, is generally seen as the first boarding school story. Fielding's novel was a moralistic tale with tangents offering instruction on behavior, and each of the nine girls in the novel relate their story individually. However it did establish aspects of the boarding school story which were repeated in later works. The school is self contained with little connection to local life, the girls are encouraged to live together with a sense of community and collective responsibility, and one of the characters experiences a sleepless night, a standard motif in subsequent girls' fiction.
Fielding's approach was imitated and used as a formula by both her contemporaries and other writers into the 19th century. Susan Coolidge in What Katy Did at School (1873) and Frances Hodgson Burnett
Frances Hodgson Burnett
Frances Eliza Hodgson Burnett was an English playwright and author. She is best known for her children's stories, in particular The Secret Garden , A Little Princess, and Little Lord Fauntleroy.Born Frances Eliza Hodgson, she lived in Cheetham Hill, Manchester...
, with Sara Crewe: or what Happened at Miss Minchin's (1887) (later rewritten as A Little Princess
A Little Princess
A Little Princess is a 1905 children's novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett. It is a revised and expanded version of Burnett's 1888 serialized novel entitled Sara Crewe: or, What Happened at Miss Minchin's Boarding School, which was published in St. Nicholas Magazine.According to Burnett, she...
) also used a girl's school setting. A character Brazil's The Third Class at Miss Kaye's quotes these novels as an example of the sort of rigid Victorian
Victorian morality
Victorian morality is a distillation of the moral views of people living at the time of Queen Victoria's reign and of the moral climate of the United Kingdom throughout the 19th century in general, which contrasted greatly with the morality of the previous Georgian period...
environment she had been expecting to find at boarding school. However, probably the most widely read and influential of Brazil's 19th century predecessors in girls' fiction, was L. T. Meade. Meade was voted most popular writer in 1898 by the readers of Girls' Realm and used some innovations in her girls school stories which were later developed by Brazil.
Shift towards collective education for girls
In the first decades of the 20th century there was a change in education for middle class girls. Previously it had been common for girls to be educated by a private tutor, an approach which led to young women growing up with a feeling of isolation from their peers. Brazil's boarding school stories were a prominent expression of this shift, and helped promote a sense of young women being a community with a shared identity as schoolgirls, in which individual girls could share common concerns and issues affecting their lives and act together. The emerging middle classes also could not afford private tuition for their daughters, and while anxious not to send them to poor schools, took advantage of the growing number of private schools for girls, of which there were at least one in most English cities by 1878.Change in general education for girls
Brazil's first school girl tales were also published in an era of increased literacy for girls, encouraged by the education acts passed into law in 1902 and 1907 and thus appeared at a particularly ripe time for publishing success and influence upon readers beyond those able to attend boarding schools. Between 1900 and 1920, the number of girls at grammar schools increased from 20,000 to 185,000. Curriculum for girls' study in general also become more liberal in this period. During the same period boarding schools for girls had gain respectability among middle class parents. These schools included a range of activities besides academic study, including activities such as lacrosse, hockey and fencing. Together with changes in the wider social context, which gave more educational and professional openings for girls, this reflected a more general sense of a world where a wider enjoyment of life and opportunity was much more available for girls than had been the case.Changing norms in girls' fiction
Much of the fiction for girls being published at the turn of the century was instructional, and focused on promoting self sacrifice, moral virtues, dignity and aspiring to a settled position in an ordered society. Brazil's fiction presented energetic characters who openly challenged authority, were cheeky, perpetrated pranks, and lived in a world which celebrated their youth and in which adults and their concerns were sidelined.While popular with girls, Brazil's books were not approved of by many adults and even banned by some headmistresses, seeing them as subversive and damaging to young minds. In 1936 Ethel Strudwick, principal of St Paul's Girls' School
St Paul's Girls' School
St Paul's Girls' School is a senior independent school, located in Brook Green, Hammersmith, in West London, England.-History:In 1904 a new day school for girls was established by the trustees of the Dean Colet Foundation , which had run St Paul's School for boys since the sixteenth century...
in London, reacted to a novella about the school by announcing at morning prayers that she would gather all of Brazil's books and set them alight.
Brazil's own fiction also changed to reflect developing attitudes and changing social mores and the changing expectations of her readers. Her stories written before 1914, the beginning of the First World War, lean more towards issues of character that were typical in Victorian fiction for girls. Those written after this become more critical of this approach, and the heroines more liberated, in parallel with changing possibilities and attitudes towards girls and their potential to become more active in wider aspects of society.
Parallel to developments in fiction for boys
Boys school stories were popular from the 1870s until the 1930s and continued to find an audience into the 1970s. Prominent writers included Talbot Baines ReedTalbot Baines Reed
Talbot Baines Reed was an English writer of boys' fiction who established a genre of school stories that endured into the second half of the 20th century. Among his best-known work is The Fifth Form at St. Dominic's. He was a regular and prolific contributor to The Boy's Own Paper , in which most...
, and Charles Hamilton
Charles Hamilton (writer)
Charles Harold St. John Hamilton , was an English writer, specializing in writing long-running series of stories for weekly magazines about recurrent casts of characters, his most frequent and famous genre being boys' public school stories, though he also dealt with other genres...
, who wrote under a number of pen names, including Frank Richards
Charles Hamilton (writer)
Charles Harold St. John Hamilton , was an English writer, specializing in writing long-running series of stories for weekly magazines about recurrent casts of characters, his most frequent and famous genre being boys' public school stories, though he also dealt with other genres...
, as author of the successful Greyfriars School
Greyfriars School
Greyfriars School is a fictional English public school used as a setting in the long running series of stories by the writer Charles Hamilton, who wrote under the pen-name Frank Richards. Although the stories are focused on the Remove , whose most famous pupil was Billy Bunter, other characters...
series. Anthony Buckeridge
Anthony Buckeridge
Anthony Malcolm Buckeridge OBE was an English author, best known for his Jennings and Rex Milligan series of children's books...
later wrote the Jennings
Jennings (novels)
The Jennings series is a collection of humorous novels of children's literature concerning the escapades of J C T Jennings, a schoolboy at Linbury Court preparatory school in England. There are 25 in total, all written by Anthony Buckeridge...
books. Themes between boys' and girl's school fiction had some commonality, such as sports, honour, and friendship.
It has been claimed that the appearance of girls' boarding school stories was a response to a parallel development of the equivalent for boys in the same period, and there are certainly elements of boys stories, such as Tom Brown's Schooldays
Tom Brown's Schooldays
Tom Brown's Schooldays is a novel by Thomas Hughes. The story is set at Rugby School, a public school for boys, in the 1830s; Hughes attended Rugby School from 1834 to 1842...
by Thomas Hughes
Thomas Hughes
Thomas Hughes was an English lawyer and author. He is most famous for his novel Tom Brown's Schooldays , a semi-autobiographical work set at Rugby School, which Hughes had attended. It had a lesser-known sequel, Tom Brown at Oxford .- Biography :Hughes was the second son of John Hughes, editor of...
, and the Greyfriars tales by Frank Richards, appear to have been borrowed by writers of girls stories, including Brazil. However this may accord an undue influence to this literature, as there had been a gradual development from the 18th century toward fiction which was more specifically focused on gender.; and many of the tropes in Brazil's books derive from the real-life schools attended by early 20th-century girls.
There were also male readers of Brazil's works, although they tended to consume these books secretly and guiltily. These including a number of prominent figures, who confessed to liking the stories in childhood, later in life. This was also a period in which girls' high schools and boarding schools were developing, drawing on aspects of the longer- established boys' boarding schools, but also developing their own culture which was more focused on encouraging friendship and security: elements which many boys, not attracted to the culture of tough masculinity in boys' schools, could relate to. There may also have been as aspect of voyeuristic attraction in boys reading stories about an environment exclusively focused on girls.
Influence
Angela Brazil is frequently held to be largely responsible for establishing the girls' school story genre, which exerted a major effect on the reading practices of girls for decades after she began publishing her novels, although this belief has been challenged. Her motifs and ideas have become a common part of popular imagination since publication and inspired many imitators and successors. J.K. Rowlings' Harry PotterHarry Potter
Harry Potter is a series of seven fantasy novels written by the British author J. K. Rowling. The books chronicle the adventures of the adolescent wizard Harry Potter and his best friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, all of whom are students at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry...
series draws upon many elements of English public School education fiction that Brazil's work helped to establish.
Towards the end of the 20th century girls' school stories had in many respects become seen as a cliché, with standard character types such as the oddball but courageous new girl and the practical but fair headmistress, and recurring scenes such as a midnight feast, pranks, heroic rescues and concert at the end of term. Many parodies of these types of stories have been produced. However, when Brazil first wrote schoolgirl tales she was simply not repeating established norms in fiction for young women, and her approach (together with other girls' writers of this period) was innovative and actually establishing new ideas about girls' lives, which were simplified and turned into stock motifs by later writers.
Popular writers of girls' school stories who certainly read Angela Brazil's books include Elinor Brent-Dyer
Elinor Brent-Dyer
Elinor M. Brent-Dyer was a children’s author who wrote over 100 books during her lifetime, the most famous being the Chalet School series.-Short Biography :...
with her Chalet School
Chalet School
The Chalet School is a series of approximately sixty school story novels by Elinor Brent-Dyer, initially published between 1925 and 1970. The school was initially located in Austria, moved to Guernsey in 1939, following the rise to power of the Nazi Party, then to "Plas Howell", a house on the...
series, and Enid Blyton
Enid Blyton
Enid Blyton was an English children's writer also known as Mary Pollock.Noted for numerous series of books based on recurring characters and designed for different age groups,her books have enjoyed huge success in many parts of the world, and have sold over 600 million copies.One of Blyton's most...
with her tales about Malory Towers
Malory Towers
Malory Towers is a series of six novels by British children's author Enid Blyton, featuring the fictional Cornish seaside boarding school of the same name...
and St Clares
St. Clare's series
St. Clare's is a series of six books written by English children's author Enid Blyton about a boarding school of that name. The series follows the heroines Patricia "Pat" and Isabel O'Sullivan from their first year at St. Clare's on...
. Brent-Dyer, whose first volume in the Chalet School
Chalet School
The Chalet School is a series of approximately sixty school story novels by Elinor Brent-Dyer, initially published between 1925 and 1970. The school was initially located in Austria, moved to Guernsey in 1939, following the rise to power of the Nazi Party, then to "Plas Howell", a house on the...
series appeared in 1925, published 57 more books in the series and these books were still selling 150,000 copies a year in the late 1990s. Dorita Fairlie Bruce
Dorita Fairlie Bruce
Dorita Fairlie Bruce was a British children's author, most notably of the Dimsie books published between 1921 and 1941. Her books were second in popularity only to Angela Brazil's during the 1920s and '30s....
and Elsie Oxenham should also be mentioned. Despite the fact that many of these stories included archaic motifs and representations, they still remain popular.
Interpretations of lesbian content
It has been suggested that Brazil's tales were intended to be covertly expressive of lesbian themes. Her stories of friendships between girls do include kissing between pupils and less frequently between pupils and teachers, and also elements of adolescent jealousy. It is possible that Brazil, writing about her own youthful experiences of schoolgirl life, was completely unaware of these implications and passionate friendships between adolescent girls are not uncommon. Nevertheless, the tone of the relationships in her stories was highly sentimental and might be interpreted as having erotic implications. In fact, Brazil seemed particularly attached to the name Lesbia, which was given to several important characters: Lesbia Ferrars in "Loyalty to the School", for instance, and Lesbia Carrington in "For the School Colours". Both of these seem to have been largely self portraits, suitably idealised. (Tempting, perhaps, to conclude she was declaring her own true colours here!)See also
- The Chalet SchoolChalet SchoolThe Chalet School is a series of approximately sixty school story novels by Elinor Brent-Dyer, initially published between 1925 and 1970. The school was initially located in Austria, moved to Guernsey in 1939, following the rise to power of the Nazi Party, then to "Plas Howell", a house on the...
series - a series of books written by Elinor Brent-DyerElinor Brent-DyerElinor M. Brent-Dyer was a children’s author who wrote over 100 books during her lifetime, the most famous being the Chalet School series.-Short Biography :...
. - The Melling School series of books written by Margaret BiggsMargaret BiggsMargaret Biggs is a popular and collectible exponent of the girls' School story. She is best known for her Melling School series of books, first published by Blackie in the 1950s. The series is set at a weekly boarding school and is unusual in that it shows boarding school life and home life side...
. - The Abbey Series, Abbey ConnectorsAbbey ConnectorsAbbey Connectors are titles by Elsie J. Oxenham that connect into her main Abbey SeriesThey fall into several sub-series, listed here in best reading order, with the Abbey Titles they relate to shown in their place in the mini-series, but without publication details, which are on the main Abbey...
and other series of books about schoolgirlsOxenham Non-ConnectorsNon-Connectors are titles by Elsie J. Oxenham that do not connect into her main Abbey Series.There are four of these series, they have no connections with each other, or with any of EJO's other books...
by Elsie J. OxenhamElsie J. OxenhamElsie Jeanette Dunkerley , was an English girls' story writer, who took the name Oxenham as her pseudonym when her first book, Goblin Island, was published in 1907. Her Abbey Series of 38 titles are her best-known and best-loved books... - The article School storySchool storyThe school story is a fiction genre centering on older pre-adolescent and adolescent school life, at its most popular in the first half of the twentieth century. While examples do exist in other countries, it is most commonly set in English boarding schools and mostly written in girls and boys sub...
Sources
- My own schooldays. Angela Brazil, 1926.
- The Schoolgirl Ethic: The Life and Work of Angela Brazil. Gillian FreemanGillian FreemanGillian Freeman is a British writer.Born in London, daughter of Dr. Jack Freeman and his wife, she graduated in English Language and Literature from the University of Reading in 1951. She married Edward Thorpe, novelist and ballet critic of the Evening Standard, in 1955. They have two daughters...
, 1976 - You're a Brick, Angela! Mary Cadogan and Patricia Craig, Gollancz, London, 1976.
- Shropshire-cc.gov.uk http://www3.shropshire-cc.gov.uk/people/brazil.htm accessed 10 January 2006 (UTC)
- Collectingbooksandmagazines.com http://www.collectingbooksandmagazines.com/angela.html accessed 10 January 2006 (UTC)