Elsie J. Oxenham
Encyclopedia
Elsie Jeanette Dunkerley (25 November 1880 - 9 January 1960), 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. In her lifetime she had 87 titles published and another two have since been published by her niece, who discovered the manuscripts in the early 1990s. She is considered a major figure among girls' story writers of the first half of the twentieth century, being one of the 'Big Three' with Elinor Brent-Dyer
and Dorita Fairlie Bruce
. Angela Brazil
is as well-known - perhaps more so - but did not write her books in series about the same group of characters or set in the same place or school, as did the Big Three.
Oxenham's books are widely collected and there are several Appreciation Societies: in the UK, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa; with a total membership of over six hundred, some of whom live in the US, Canada, India and The Netherlands although belonging to one or more of the societies mentioned.
, Lancashire
, England
, in November 1880, to an English father and a Scottish mother.
Before she was 2 years old the family moved to Ealing
, West London
, where they lived for nearly forty years. She and her sisters went to private schools and attended Ealing Congregational Church
. The six Dunkerley children in order of age were: Elsie, Marjory (Maida), Roderic, Theodora (Theo), Erica and Hugo. The family lived in five different houses during their time in Ealing and moved to Worthing
, Sussex
, in 1922. She took the surname Oxenham as her pen name when Goblin Island was published in 1907. Her father, William Arthur Dunkerley, had used the pen-name John Oxenham
for many years prior to this.
During the London years, Elsie Oxenham became involved in the British Camp Fire Girls
movement, and qualified as a Guardian - the leader of a group of Camp Fire Girls. She ran this Camp Fire Group for some 6 years, until the move to Sussex. One of the Camp Fire members was Margaret Bayne Todd - later Margaret, Lady Simey
- who appears in Abbey Girls in Town and to whom that title was dedicated. It is thought that she was the 'original' on whom the characters of both Jenny-Wren and Littlejan were based.
At some point during her time in London Oxenham joined the English Folk Dance Society (EFDS - it did not become the English Folk Dance and Song Society
[EFDSS] until much later). She then discovered how 'badly' she had been doing the dances - and teaching them! - as related in The Abbey Girls Go Back to School (published 1922). Everything that the 'Writing Person' [her on-page persona] told Maidlin, Jen and Joy, in The New Abbey Girls (published 1923), about dancing, Grey Edward, and the Camp Fire had happened as described.
After the family had moved to Worthing, Oxenham taught folk dancing in nearby villages and schools. She tried to start another Camp Fire but that was not a success as most of the girls of the right age were already Girl Guides
.
At first, the family all lived at Farncombe Road, Worthing, but after their mother died the four sisters moved out, living in pairs, Elsie with Maida, and Erica with Theo. None of the sisters married, but both brothers did. Elsie died in a local nursing Home in January 1960, a few days after Erica.
. These were both symbols of deeper meanings. The motto, deliberately using a quote from the Shakespeare
play Hamlet
, is taken to mean to make the right choice, usually duty above self-interest, when it arises. Throughout the Abbey Series the various main characters come up against this choice and its consequences, and are shown growing and maturing through making difficult decisions. The badge, taken from a landmark local to the area in which the series is set, is also symbolic—as is any cross—of sacrifice.
The Abbey of the series is almost a character in itself. Based on Cleeve Abbey
in Somerset
, it first appears as a romantic ruin in the second of the series The Abbey Girls. By the end of this book, the cousins Joan and Joy Shirley are living in Abinger Hall, in the gardens of which the Abbey is situated. Joy has been discovered to be the granddaughter of the late owner, Sir Antony Abinger, and the Hall is left to her, but Joan, who was not related to Sir Antony, has been left the Abbey "Because of [her] love for it, and because [her] knowledge of it was so thorough." The Abbey and its influence pervades the whole series. Characters try to live up to the precepts of the early Cistercian monks who lived there, and even when facing difficult situations abroad, find that the Abbey ethos helps them find the way through to the right decision.
Oxenham depicted herself directly and indirectly in several places within the Abbey series. As "The Writing Person" she is depicting herself as she was in the early 1920s, over 40 years of age and going to the folk dance classes run by the English Folk Dance Society
in London
. Once Mary-Dorothy Devine, first introduced in The Abbey Girls Again, becomes a writer, statements she makes about the writing experience must logically be those of Oxenham herself. She talks of "finding" the books, and of "listening in to [her own] private wireless". Some fifteen years later according to the internal chronology of the series, and nearly thirty years later in real time, Mary-Dorothy advises Rachel Ellerton, a younger writer who has been trying to get her adult fiction published, to try writing for children:
This statement, from near the end of Oxenham's writing career, seems to convey Oxenham’s own writing credo. It is quoted in its entirety as one of the few insights Oxenham gives into her own reasons for writing. In her very first book, Goblin Island, published nearly fifty years earlier, and written in the first person, Jean, the narrator, says,
This would indicate that her own start in writing was similar; it is certainly known that she typed up the writings of her father, John Oxenham
, a task later taken on by her sister Erica Dunkerley, who also used the pseudonym Oxenham for her published writings.
. This gave a Protestant ethos to her writing and her expressed opinions. Many of her characters go through difficult periods in their lives, and their religious beliefs help them through. Several of the books written in the 1920s and 1930s, particularly, include discussions between characters as to the meaning of life and the reasons behind events. These in-depth conversations tend to appear less frequently in the later books, but even as late as 1948, in A Fiddler for the Abbey Mary-Dorothy Devine, who has become "advisor-in-chief to the clan" talks to Rosalind Kane about the biblical concept of "rain falling on the just and the unjust" and the reasons behind the occurrence of both good and bad events.
and realised that the dances were not so simple after all. The books written from this time for the next six years or so, until Abbey Girls Win Through (1928) depict members of the EFDS
hierarchy with affection and almost reverence. It seems that something happened to spoil this relationship, as after 1930 these characters do not appear in the books, and are hardly referred to again, certainly not in such glowing terms. The EFDS makes a brief appearance in An Abbey Champion (1946), but the personnel are no longer named. It may have been as simple as the move to Worthing
and the impossibility of maintaining as close a friendship at a distance of some sixty miles, but it has been conjectured that 'Madam' (Helen Kennedy North) and 'The Pixie' (Daisy Caroline Daking) may have objected to the way they were being portrayed. Oxenham never lost the love of folk dancing itself, however, and always shows it as a healthy form of exercise, and a way of lifting oneself out of depression.
plays a large part in several of Oxenham’s books published between 1917 and 1940. Oxenham was a Camp Fire Guardian when she lived in Ealing
, but the attempt to form a group in Sussex
failed. The Camp Fire ideals of Work, Health and Love–'Wohelo'–and the training for young girls in household tasks and cookery it provided, were integral to Oxenham's own philosophy, and underlie the plots of several books. From the Camp Fire as an integral part of a school in A School Camp Fire (1917) and The Crisis in Camp Keema (1928) to the lone Camp Fire Girl, Barbara Holt, in The Junior Captain (1923) and Maidlin becoming a Torchbearer in Maidlin Bears the Torch (1937), Camp Fire is always shown as a way of developing character. As Oxenham became less involved with the organisation, and came more into contact with the Girl Guides
, the contrast between the two organisations and their aims are shown, and eventually the reality of the changed situation in England at the time meant that Guides were more often mentioned in her books than Camp Fire.
and Dorita Fairlie Bruce
. Although Angela Brazil
is the first name to come to mind for non-specialists, in terms of collecting and interest Brazil is less popular than these three.
Oxenham was not the most prolific of these three, as she had 87 titles published during her lifetime (and a further two were published by her niece, who discovered the manuscripts among Oxenham's papers in the 1990s) whereas Brent-Dyer published 100 books of various kinds. Nearly forty of Oxenham's books comprise the main Abbey Series, with another thirty or so in several connecting series
and the remaining twenty
- some in small series of their own, and some isolated titles - having no connection with the Abbey books at all. During the 1920s to the 1950s she had several short stories, and some longer serialised ones, published in Annuals such as the Girl's Own Annual
, British Girl's Annual, Little Folks and Hulton's Girls' Stories. Some of these stories were connected to the books - i.e. dealt with characters from one of her books or series - others became books, or sections of books, that were published a year or two later.
reprinted most of the Oxenham titles that they had published in various of their publishing series, in particular the main titles in the Abbey Series which were produced in several different formats. Her other publishers did so less often, if at all, though a few titles had one or two reissues. This is why the non-Collins books are normally rarer - and consequently more expensive for the collector.
Several books have more recently been reprinted by Girls Gone By Publishers, who are planning eventually to republish all the main Abbey titles. Elsie Oxenham's first book was Goblin Island, published in 1907. This was reprinted in October 2007 by GGBP
as a centenary edition, with all the known illustrations from every edition, a new introduction, and a full publishing history.
Goblin Island became the first in the so-called Scottish Sequence of six titles, four of which are set largely in Scotland
: Goblin Island itself, set on 'Loch Avie', a fictionalised Loch Lomond
; Princess in Tatters, set on 'Loch Ruel', which may be Loch Fyne
; A Holiday Queen, set at 'Morven' on what appears to be Loch Long
; and Schoolgirls and Scouts set at 'Glenleny', which also seems to be on Loch Long, but a bit further up the loch. Of the other two in the series, Twins of Castle Charming - perhaps Oxenham's rarest title - is set largely in Switzerland
, whereas Finding Her Family has some early scenes set in Ealing
and mainly takes place in Saltburn
.
One of the interests of collectors and EJO Society members is finding and visiting the original sites used by Oxenham in her books. As well as the Buckinghamshire
/Oxfordshire
area which is the background for Girls of the Hamlet Club and the village of Washford
, Somerset where Cleeve Abbey
is situated, Oxenham used parts of Sussex
, Wales
, Lancashire
, the English Lake District and Scotland
for the settings of several books. The UK Society holds a biennial meeting at Cleeve Abbey
in the summer, which includes folk-dancing and tours of the Abbey as if it were the fictional one. These places are not always depicted in the books exactly as the real sites; Oxenham was writing fiction, and given that she could move an abbey several hundred miles for her purposes, changing a few names and telescoping or stretching distances was also well within her remit.
coronations are often held as part of the meetings and camps, but book discussions and general chats are more usual in the less formal meetings.
as a recognition of the inspiration that the author received by her visits to the Abbey, and her collection of photographs of the site. In summer it is usually placed against the outer wall of the west range to overlook the gatehouse meadow.
The plaque on the seat reads:
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
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. In her lifetime she had 87 titles published and another two have since been published by her niece, who discovered the manuscripts in the early 1990s. She is considered a major figure among girls' story writers of the first half of the twentieth century, being one of the 'Big Three' with 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 :...
and 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....
. Angela Brazil
Angela Brazil
Angela Brazil 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...
is as well-known - perhaps more so - but did not write her books in series about the same group of characters or set in the same place or school, as did the Big Three.
Oxenham's books are widely collected and there are several Appreciation Societies: in the UK, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa; with a total membership of over six hundred, some of whom live in the US, Canada, India and The Netherlands although belonging to one or more of the societies mentioned.
Biography
Elsie Jeanette Dunkerley was born in SouthportSouthport
Southport is a seaside town in the Metropolitan Borough of Sefton in Merseyside, England. During the 2001 census Southport was recorded as having a population of 90,336, making it the eleventh most populous settlement in North West England...
, 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...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, in November 1880, to an English father and a Scottish mother.
Before she was 2 years old the family moved to Ealing
Ealing
Ealing is a suburban area of west London, England and the administrative centre of the London Borough of Ealing. It is located west of Charing Cross and around from the City of London. It is one of the major metropolitan centres identified in the London Plan. It was historically a rural village...
, West London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, where they lived for nearly forty years. She and her sisters went to private schools and attended Ealing Congregational Church
Congregational church
Congregational churches are Protestant Christian churches practicing Congregationalist church governance, in which each congregation independently and autonomously runs its own affairs....
. The six Dunkerley children in order of age were: Elsie, Marjory (Maida), Roderic, Theodora (Theo), Erica and Hugo. The family lived in five different houses during their time in Ealing and moved to Worthing
Worthing
Worthing is a large seaside town with borough status in West Sussex, within the historic County of Sussex, forming part of the Brighton/Worthing/Littlehampton conurbation. It is situated at the foot of the South Downs, west of Brighton, and east of the county town of Chichester...
, Sussex
Sussex
Sussex , from the Old English Sūþsēaxe , is an historic county in South East England corresponding roughly in area to the ancient Kingdom of Sussex. It is bounded on the north by Surrey, east by Kent, south by the English Channel, and west by Hampshire, and is divided for local government into West...
, in 1922. She took the surname Oxenham as her pen name when Goblin Island was published in 1907. Her father, William Arthur Dunkerley, had used the pen-name John Oxenham
John Oxenham
William Arthur Dunkerley was a prolific English journalist, novelist and poet. He was born in Manchester, spent a short time after his marriage in America before moving to Ealing, west London, where he served as deacon and teacher at the Ealing Congregational Church from the 1880s, and he...
for many years prior to this.
During the London years, Elsie Oxenham became involved in the British Camp Fire Girls
British Camp Fire Girls' Association
The British Camp Fire Girls' Association was a youth organisation in the UK. It was founded in 1921 and was an off-shoot of Camp Fire USA.The association was the focus of an article in the March 1999 issue of Best of British magazine.-External links:...
movement, and qualified as a Guardian - the leader of a group of Camp Fire Girls. She ran this Camp Fire Group for some 6 years, until the move to Sussex. One of the Camp Fire members was Margaret Bayne Todd - later Margaret, Lady Simey
Margaret Simey
Margaret Bayne Todd was a political and social campaigner born in Glasgow, but is usually more associated with Liverpool, settling there in the 1920s and becoming the first woman to achieve a degree in sociology...
- who appears in Abbey Girls in Town and to whom that title was dedicated. It is thought that she was the 'original' on whom the characters of both Jenny-Wren and Littlejan were based.
At some point during her time in London Oxenham joined the English Folk Dance Society (EFDS - it did not become the English Folk Dance and Song Society
English Folk Dance and Song Society
The English Folk Dance and Song Society was formed in 1932 when two organisations merged: the Folk-Song Society and the English Folk Dance Society. The EFDSS, a member-based organisation, was incorporated as a Company limited by guarantee in 1935 and became a Registered Charity The English Folk...
[EFDSS] until much later). She then discovered how 'badly' she had been doing the dances - and teaching them! - as related in The Abbey Girls Go Back to School (published 1922). Everything that the 'Writing Person' [her on-page persona] told Maidlin, Jen and Joy, in The New Abbey Girls (published 1923), about dancing, Grey Edward, and the Camp Fire had happened as described.
After the family had moved to Worthing, Oxenham taught folk dancing in nearby villages and schools. She tried to start another Camp Fire but that was not a success as most of the girls of the right age were already Girl Guides
Girlguiding UK
Girlguiding UK is the national Guiding organisation of the United Kingdom. Guiding began in the UK in 1910 after Robert Baden-Powell asked his sister Agnes to start a group especially for girls that would be run along similar lines to Scouting for Boys. The Guide Association was a founder member of...
.
At first, the family all lived at Farncombe Road, Worthing, but after their mother died the four sisters moved out, living in pairs, Elsie with Maida, and Erica with Theo. None of the sisters married, but both brothers did. Elsie died in a local nursing Home in January 1960, a few days after Erica.
Abbey Series
Oxenham is best known for her Abbey Series of 38 titles which chart the lives of the main characters from their mid-teens until their daughters reach a similar age. The Hamlet Club, formed in the first book in the series Girls of the Hamlet Club, was set up to combat snobbery in the school. Underlying the club’s overt activities of folk-dancing and rambles was its motto 'To be or not to be', and its badge, the Whiteleaf CrossWhiteleaf, Buckinghamshire
Whiteleaf is a hamlet in the civil parish of Princes Risborough and the ecclesiastical parish of Monks Risborough in Buckinghamshire, England. It is located 7 miles south of the county town of Aylesbury and 8 miles north of High Wycombe...
. These were both symbols of deeper meanings. The motto, deliberately using a quote from the Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
play Hamlet
Hamlet
The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, or more simply Hamlet, is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1599 and 1601...
, is taken to mean to make the right choice, usually duty above self-interest, when it arises. Throughout the Abbey Series the various main characters come up against this choice and its consequences, and are shown growing and maturing through making difficult decisions. The badge, taken from a landmark local to the area in which the series is set, is also symbolic—as is any cross—of sacrifice.
The Abbey of the series is almost a character in itself. Based on Cleeve Abbey
Cleeve Abbey
Cleeve Abbey is a medieval monastery located near the village of Washford, in Somerset, England. The abbey was founded in the late twelfth century as a house for monks of the austere Cistercian order. Over its 350-year monastic history Cleeve was undistinguished amongst the abbeys of its order,...
in Somerset
Somerset
The ceremonial and non-metropolitan county of Somerset in South West England borders Bristol and Gloucestershire to the north, Wiltshire to the east, Dorset to the south-east, and Devon to the south-west. It is partly bounded to the north and west by the Bristol Channel and the estuary of the...
, it first appears as a romantic ruin in the second of the series The Abbey Girls. By the end of this book, the cousins Joan and Joy Shirley are living in Abinger Hall, in the gardens of which the Abbey is situated. Joy has been discovered to be the granddaughter of the late owner, Sir Antony Abinger, and the Hall is left to her, but Joan, who was not related to Sir Antony, has been left the Abbey "Because of [her] love for it, and because [her] knowledge of it was so thorough." The Abbey and its influence pervades the whole series. Characters try to live up to the precepts of the early Cistercian monks who lived there, and even when facing difficult situations abroad, find that the Abbey ethos helps them find the way through to the right decision.
Oxenham depicted herself directly and indirectly in several places within the Abbey series. As "The Writing Person" she is depicting herself as she was in the early 1920s, over 40 years of age and going to the folk dance classes run by the English Folk Dance Society
English Folk Dance and Song Society
The English Folk Dance and Song Society was formed in 1932 when two organisations merged: the Folk-Song Society and the English Folk Dance Society. The EFDSS, a member-based organisation, was incorporated as a Company limited by guarantee in 1935 and became a Registered Charity The English Folk...
in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
. Once Mary-Dorothy Devine, first introduced in The Abbey Girls Again, becomes a writer, statements she makes about the writing experience must logically be those of Oxenham herself. She talks of "finding" the books, and of "listening in to [her own] private wireless". Some fifteen years later according to the internal chronology of the series, and nearly thirty years later in real time, Mary-Dorothy advises Rachel Ellerton, a younger writer who has been trying to get her adult fiction published, to try writing for children:
This statement, from near the end of Oxenham's writing career, seems to convey Oxenham’s own writing credo. It is quoted in its entirety as one of the few insights Oxenham gives into her own reasons for writing. In her very first book, Goblin Island, published nearly fifty years earlier, and written in the first person, Jean, the narrator, says,
This would indicate that her own start in writing was similar; it is certainly known that she typed up the writings of her father, John Oxenham
John Oxenham
William Arthur Dunkerley was a prolific English journalist, novelist and poet. He was born in Manchester, spent a short time after his marriage in America before moving to Ealing, west London, where he served as deacon and teacher at the Ealing Congregational Church from the 1880s, and he...
, a task later taken on by her sister Erica Dunkerley, who also used the pseudonym Oxenham for her published writings.
Religion
Oxenham's religious background was in CongregationalismCongregational church
Congregational churches are Protestant Christian churches practicing Congregationalist church governance, in which each congregation independently and autonomously runs its own affairs....
. This gave a Protestant ethos to her writing and her expressed opinions. Many of her characters go through difficult periods in their lives, and their religious beliefs help them through. Several of the books written in the 1920s and 1930s, particularly, include discussions between characters as to the meaning of life and the reasons behind events. These in-depth conversations tend to appear less frequently in the later books, but even as late as 1948, in A Fiddler for the Abbey Mary-Dorothy Devine, who has become "advisor-in-chief to the clan" talks to Rosalind Kane about the biblical concept of "rain falling on the just and the unjust" and the reasons behind the occurrence of both good and bad events.
Folk dancing
Folk dancing is a strong influence in many of the books. From Girls of the Hamlet Club (1914) and At School with the Roundheads (1915) until The Girls of the Abbey School (1921), it was shown as a fairly easy thing for girls to do, and to teach each other. By the time of The Abbey Girls Go Back to School (1922) it is apparent that Oxenham herself had come into contact with the English Folk Dance SocietyEnglish Folk Dance and Song Society
The English Folk Dance and Song Society was formed in 1932 when two organisations merged: the Folk-Song Society and the English Folk Dance Society. The EFDSS, a member-based organisation, was incorporated as a Company limited by guarantee in 1935 and became a Registered Charity The English Folk...
and realised that the dances were not so simple after all. The books written from this time for the next six years or so, until Abbey Girls Win Through (1928) depict members of the EFDS
English Folk Dance and Song Society
The English Folk Dance and Song Society was formed in 1932 when two organisations merged: the Folk-Song Society and the English Folk Dance Society. The EFDSS, a member-based organisation, was incorporated as a Company limited by guarantee in 1935 and became a Registered Charity The English Folk...
hierarchy with affection and almost reverence. It seems that something happened to spoil this relationship, as after 1930 these characters do not appear in the books, and are hardly referred to again, certainly not in such glowing terms. The EFDS makes a brief appearance in An Abbey Champion (1946), but the personnel are no longer named. It may have been as simple as the move to Worthing
Worthing
Worthing is a large seaside town with borough status in West Sussex, within the historic County of Sussex, forming part of the Brighton/Worthing/Littlehampton conurbation. It is situated at the foot of the South Downs, west of Brighton, and east of the county town of Chichester...
and the impossibility of maintaining as close a friendship at a distance of some sixty miles, but it has been conjectured that 'Madam' (Helen Kennedy North) and 'The Pixie' (Daisy Caroline Daking) may have objected to the way they were being portrayed. Oxenham never lost the love of folk dancing itself, however, and always shows it as a healthy form of exercise, and a way of lifting oneself out of depression.
Camp Fire
Camp FireCamp Fire USA
Camp Fire USA, originally Camp Fire Girls of America, is a nationwide American youth organization that began in 1910. The organization has been co-ed since 1975 and welcomes youth from pre-kindergarten through age 21. Camp Fire was the first nonsectarian, multicultural organization for girls in...
plays a large part in several of Oxenham’s books published between 1917 and 1940. Oxenham was a Camp Fire Guardian when she lived in Ealing
Ealing
Ealing is a suburban area of west London, England and the administrative centre of the London Borough of Ealing. It is located west of Charing Cross and around from the City of London. It is one of the major metropolitan centres identified in the London Plan. It was historically a rural village...
, but the attempt to form a group in Sussex
Sussex
Sussex , from the Old English Sūþsēaxe , is an historic county in South East England corresponding roughly in area to the ancient Kingdom of Sussex. It is bounded on the north by Surrey, east by Kent, south by the English Channel, and west by Hampshire, and is divided for local government into West...
failed. The Camp Fire ideals of Work, Health and Love–'Wohelo'–and the training for young girls in household tasks and cookery it provided, were integral to Oxenham's own philosophy, and underlie the plots of several books. From the Camp Fire as an integral part of a school in A School Camp Fire (1917) and The Crisis in Camp Keema (1928) to the lone Camp Fire Girl, Barbara Holt, in The Junior Captain (1923) and Maidlin becoming a Torchbearer in Maidlin Bears the Torch (1937), Camp Fire is always shown as a way of developing character. As Oxenham became less involved with the organisation, and came more into contact with the Girl Guides
Girlguiding UK
Girlguiding UK is the national Guiding organisation of the United Kingdom. Guiding began in the UK in 1910 after Robert Baden-Powell asked his sister Agnes to start a group especially for girls that would be run along similar lines to Scouting for Boys. The Guide Association was a founder member of...
, the contrast between the two organisations and their aims are shown, and eventually the reality of the changed situation in England at the time meant that Guides were more often mentioned in her books than Camp Fire.
Place in Children's Literature
Elsie J. Oxenham is considered by collectors of British Girls' Fiction to be one of the 'Big Three'; the other two being Elinor Brent-DyerElinor 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 :...
and 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....
. Although Angela Brazil
Angela Brazil
Angela Brazil 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...
is the first name to come to mind for non-specialists, in terms of collecting and interest Brazil is less popular than these three.
Oxenham was not the most prolific of these three, as she had 87 titles published during her lifetime (and a further two were published by her niece, who discovered the manuscripts among Oxenham's papers in the 1990s) whereas Brent-Dyer published 100 books of various kinds. Nearly forty of Oxenham's books comprise the main Abbey Series, with another thirty or so in several connecting series
Abbey Connectors
Abbey 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 the remaining twenty
Oxenham Non-Connectors
Non-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...
- some in small series of their own, and some isolated titles - having no connection with the Abbey books at all. During the 1920s to the 1950s she had several short stories, and some longer serialised ones, published in Annuals such as the Girl's Own Annual
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...
, British Girl's Annual, Little Folks and Hulton's Girls' Stories. Some of these stories were connected to the books - i.e. dealt with characters from one of her books or series - others became books, or sections of books, that were published a year or two later.
Reprinted titles
CollinsHarperCollins
HarperCollins is a publishing company owned by News Corporation. It is the combination of the publishers William Collins, Sons and Co Ltd, a British company, and Harper & Row, an American company, itself the result of an earlier merger of Harper & Brothers and Row, Peterson & Company. The worldwide...
reprinted most of the Oxenham titles that they had published in various of their publishing series, in particular the main titles in the Abbey Series which were produced in several different formats. Her other publishers did so less often, if at all, though a few titles had one or two reissues. This is why the non-Collins books are normally rarer - and consequently more expensive for the collector.
Several books have more recently been reprinted by Girls Gone By Publishers, who are planning eventually to republish all the main Abbey titles. Elsie Oxenham's first book was Goblin Island, published in 1907. This was reprinted in October 2007 by GGBP
Girls Gone By Publishers
Girls Gone By Publishers is a publishing company run by Clarissa Cridland and Ann Mackie-Hunter and is based in Bath, Somerset. They re-publish new editions of some of the most popular girls' fiction titles from the twentieth century.-Elinor Brent-Dyer:...
as a centenary edition, with all the known illustrations from every edition, a new introduction, and a full publishing history.
Goblin Island became the first in the so-called Scottish Sequence of six titles, four of which are set largely in Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
: Goblin Island itself, set on 'Loch Avie', a fictionalised Loch Lomond
Loch Lomond
Loch Lomond is a freshwater Scottish loch, lying on the Highland Boundary Fault. It is the largest lake in Great Britain by surface area. The lake contains many islands, including Inchmurrin, the largest fresh-water island in the British Isles, although the lake itself is smaller than many Irish...
; Princess in Tatters, set on 'Loch Ruel', which may be Loch Fyne
Loch Fyne
Loch Fyne is a sea loch on the west coast of Argyll and Bute, Scotland. It extends inland from the Sound of Bute, making it the longest of the sea lochs...
; A Holiday Queen, set at 'Morven' on what appears to be Loch Long
Loch Long
Loch Long is a body of water in Argyll and Bute, Scotland. The sea loch extends from the Firth of Clyde at its southwestern end. It measures approximately 20 miles in length, with a width of between one and two miles...
; and Schoolgirls and Scouts set at 'Glenleny', which also seems to be on Loch Long, but a bit further up the loch. Of the other two in the series, Twins of Castle Charming - perhaps Oxenham's rarest title - is set largely in Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
, whereas Finding Her Family has some early scenes set in Ealing
Ealing
Ealing is a suburban area of west London, England and the administrative centre of the London Borough of Ealing. It is located west of Charing Cross and around from the City of London. It is one of the major metropolitan centres identified in the London Plan. It was historically a rural village...
and mainly takes place in Saltburn
Saltburn
Saltburn is a long linear coastal village, which is situated on the northern shore of the Cromarty Firth, in Ross-shire, Scottish Highlands, and is in the Scottish council area of Highland....
.
Elsie Jeanette Oxenham Appreciation Society (UK)
The UK EJO Society was founded in 1989 as a "postal meeting place" for all who collect the books of Elsie J. Oxenham and are interested in her work. Its magazine The Abbey Chronicle is published three times a year and contains articles about the author, her books, the real places used as settings for the books, the originals of characters within the books, and reports of meetings held by members.One of the interests of collectors and EJO Society members is finding and visiting the original sites used by Oxenham in her books. As well as the Buckinghamshire
Buckinghamshire
Buckinghamshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan home county in South East England. The county town is Aylesbury, the largest town in the ceremonial county is Milton Keynes and largest town in the non-metropolitan county is High Wycombe....
/Oxfordshire
Oxfordshire
Oxfordshire is a county in the South East region of England, bordering on Warwickshire and Northamptonshire , Buckinghamshire , Berkshire , Wiltshire and Gloucestershire ....
area which is the background for Girls of the Hamlet Club and the village of Washford
Washford
Washford is a small village on the Washford River in the English county of Somerset. It is within the civil parish of Old Cleeve and is best known as the site of Cleeve Abbey, one of the best-preserved medieval monasteries in England...
, Somerset where Cleeve Abbey
Cleeve Abbey
Cleeve Abbey is a medieval monastery located near the village of Washford, in Somerset, England. The abbey was founded in the late twelfth century as a house for monks of the austere Cistercian order. Over its 350-year monastic history Cleeve was undistinguished amongst the abbeys of its order,...
is situated, Oxenham used parts of Sussex
Sussex
Sussex , from the Old English Sūþsēaxe , is an historic county in South East England corresponding roughly in area to the ancient Kingdom of Sussex. It is bounded on the north by Surrey, east by Kent, south by the English Channel, and west by Hampshire, and is divided for local government into West...
, Wales
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
, 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...
, the English Lake District and Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
for the settings of several books. The UK Society holds a biennial meeting at Cleeve Abbey
Cleeve Abbey
Cleeve Abbey is a medieval monastery located near the village of Washford, in Somerset, England. The abbey was founded in the late twelfth century as a house for monks of the austere Cistercian order. Over its 350-year monastic history Cleeve was undistinguished amongst the abbeys of its order,...
in the summer, which includes folk-dancing and tours of the Abbey as if it were the fictional one. These places are not always depicted in the books exactly as the real sites; Oxenham was writing fiction, and given that she could move an abbey several hundred miles for her purposes, changing a few names and telescoping or stretching distances was also well within her remit.
Abbey Girls of Australia
The Australian society, The Abbey Girls of Australia, has been in existence since 1985; its motto is 'Bound in Friendship'. It produces a magazine, The Abbey Guardian. There are official branches in several states of Australia. Regular meetings take place, and weekend 'Camps' are held every two or three years to gather people from further afield. May QueenMay Queen
The May Queen or Queen of May is a term which has two distinct but related meanings, as a mythical figure and as a holiday personification.-Festivals:...
coronations are often held as part of the meetings and camps, but book discussions and general chats are more usual in the less formal meetings.
New Zealand
New Zealand's Society was founded at about the same time as the British one; its magazine is called The Abbey Gatehouse and the motto is 'Gate Open Be' - a quote from the Abbey books. At the moment there is no web page available for the New Zealand Society.Rest of the World
In both South Africa and North America there are groups who meet regularly, but they do not produce their own magazines. Members of the groups receive the magazines which do exist, normally each subscribing to one of the three, as well as magazines for other author interest societies, as a means of sharing them among the rest of the group.Seat at Cleeve Abbey
In 1995 the EJO Societies worldwide held a collection to provide a seat at Cleeve AbbeyCleeve Abbey
Cleeve Abbey is a medieval monastery located near the village of Washford, in Somerset, England. The abbey was founded in the late twelfth century as a house for monks of the austere Cistercian order. Over its 350-year monastic history Cleeve was undistinguished amongst the abbeys of its order,...
as a recognition of the inspiration that the author received by her visits to the Abbey, and her collection of photographs of the site. In summer it is usually placed against the outer wall of the west range to overlook the gatehouse meadow.
The plaque on the seat reads:
IN MEMORY OF
ELSIE JEANETTE OXENHAM (1880-1960)
WHOSE VISITS TO CLEEVE ABBEY
INSPIRED HER ABBEY BOOKS
GIVEN BY MEMBERS OF THE WORLD-WIDE
ELSIE OXENHAM SOCIETIES