Nombre canónico: Adams, Ellinor Davenport
Nombre legal: Adams, Ellinor Lily Davenport
Otros nombres: Adams, E.D. (published name)
Adams, E. Davenport (published name)
Fecha de nacimiento: 1858
Fecha de fallecimiento: 1913
Género: female
Nacionalidad: England
UK
País (para mapa): UK
Lugar de nacimiento: Putney, London, England, UK
Lugar de fallecimiento: Putney, London, England, UK
Ocupaciones: children's book author
Relaciones: Adams, W. H. Davenport (father)
Adams, William Davenport (brother)
Biografía breve: Ellinor Davenport Adams (1858–1913) - sometimes credited as E. Davenport Adams, or E.D. Adams - was a late-nineteenth, early twentieth-century British author, who penned approximately twenty children's books. Many of her stories were aimed at girls, and straddled the line between the Victorian morality tale and the sweeter, more light-hearted fare that followed.

Adams was born in Putney, London, in 1859, the daughter of nineteenth-century journalist and author W.H. (William Henry) Davenport Adams. Her eldest brother was William Davenport Adams, also a journalist and author, and the creator of the Dictionary of English Literature (1877). Her sister Florence likewise worked as a journalist, and wrote plays for children. Adams began writing in her late twenties. She died in 1913. (sources: The Encyclopaedia of Girls' School Stories, The "At the Circulating Library: A Database of Victorian Fiction" website)

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Little Greycoat por Ellinor Davenport Adams

When Molly and Ivy Elvey gain a new neigbor, they nickname her 'Little Greycoat,' and are eager to make friends. Quite different in their interests and temperaments - nine-year-old Ivy is good at her lessons, and loves to read, while eight-year-old Molly is more active, and loves sports and physical play - the two sisters soon become rivals for the affections of this new playmate. Fortunately for them, Little Greycoat (real name: Hildegarde Florimonde Wortley) is a goodhearted little girl, and finds a way, through her project to make dolls for the children in the local hospital, to create a better understanding between the Elvey girls...

At a scant sixty-three pages, Ellinor Davenport Adams' Little Greycoat is a brief chapter-book, one clearly intended for younger children than the readers of such works as Colonel Russell's Baby. I found the central narrative dilemma - the rivalry between Molly and Ivy, and their competition for the friendship of the eponymous Little Greycoat - fairly uninteresting, even though I recognized the themes as ones that ring true, in the lives of many young girls. What rang less true was the almost saintly nature of Little Greycoat, who only ever seems interested in being a peacemaker between the other two girls. Leaving that aside, of the three books I have read from this author, this is probably the one I have enjoyed least. It did not have the emotional power (or melodrama) of Colonel Russell's Baby, nor the gorgeous production values of The Disagreeable Duke: A Christmas Whimsicality for Holiday Boys and Girls, and I'm not sure I'd really recommend it, unless you are (like me) interested in this author's work.… (más)

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AbigailAdams26 | Oct 28, 2018 |

The Disagreeable Duke: A Christmas Whimsicality for… por Ellinor Davenport Adams

A group of English children, come to stay with their absent-minded rector grandfather one holiday season because illness has struck their various homes, long for a proper Christmas tree, and set out to "liberate" one from the nearby estate of a duke reputed to be most disagreeable. It falls to Jack to lead the band of children - boys and girls - on their nighttime raid, and many are the games they play along the way, from Widdy-Widdy Warning to Puss-in-the-Corner. There is much dismay in their camp when they discover, upon their return, that they have stolen a Wellingtonia (the colloquial British name for a giant sequoia), rather than the more desirable (and perhaps more traditional?) fir. Fortunately, the youngest grandchild, the universally beloved "Beauty" Grantham (real name: Dolabella!), had taken it upon herself to visit the disagreeable duke in question, and plead for the desired arboreal decoration. Imagine her surprise when she discovers that this supposedly fearsome nobleman is actually a young boy of her own age! Alfred proves less disagreeable than thought, and eventually becomes the playmate of Beauty and her many siblings and cousins. Naturally, the much-desired Christmas tree is, after some setbacks, produced...

Subtitled "A Christmas Whimsicality for Holiday Boys and Girls," this brief novel from late 19th/early 20th-century English children's author Ellinor Davenport Adams is clearly meant to be an entertaining, light-hearted little cream puff of a story. I certainly breezed through it easily enough, reading it over the course of one afternoon in my university's rare book room. That said, I can't say that I found it particularly engrossing, and I had trouble working up much of an interest in the young characters and their quest for a Christmas tree. Unlike Colonel Russell's Baby, one of Adams' longer novels, which I have also read, and which makes for emotionally compelling reading, despite its distinctly melodramatic storyline, I found the sentimentality of The Disagreeable Duke somewhat unappealing, and came away with an impression of too concerted an effort at lightheartedness to be entirely convincing. Amusing cream-puff stories are delightfully easy to read, but less easy to produce, I would imagine, and Adams doesn't quite succeed here. It's an obscure book, one I tracked down due to an interest in this author's work, so I'm not sure to whom I would recommend it - perhaps those researching late 19th-century British children's novels featuring Christmas and/or the grandchild-grandparent bond? Or perhaps fans of the illustrator, Emily J. Harding?… (más)

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AbigailAdams26 | Jan 1, 2018 |

Colonel Russell's Baby por Ellinor Davenport Adams

A thoroughly sentimental, late-nineteenth century work, Colonel Russell's Baby is part school story and part family tale, focusing on the relationship between a stern Latin Master - the eponymous Everard Russell, a retired army colonel and renowned war hero - and the sweet and eager-to-please young pupil who comes to mean everything to him. Nine-year-old Lily Eversley, a motherless child who had been removed from her regular school because of delicate health, is sent to the Institute in Fleetmouth, there to take just a few classes, in order to keep up her studies. She quickly becomes the "baby" of the Latin class, impressing Colonel Russell with her studious habits and quick understanding, and winning the place of "Dux," or head of the class. Lily, for her part, develops a strong case of hero worship for Colonel Russell, wondering how the older girls could "look at the master of the Latin class, and listen to the beautiful things he had to tell them, without loving him too, and wanting to please him with grateful attention and lessons perfectly said."

All is not smooth sailing, however, and Lily finds herself embroiled in a number of misadventures, from earning the Colonel's displeasure for failing to prepare her lessons one week, because she went skating with her brother Wilfie (Wilfred), to finding herself falsely accused of drawing an unkind caricature of her teacher, something that is actually the work of a jealous older girl. Through it all, however, Colonel Russell's Baby, as she comes to be known throughout the school, attempts to win through to her instructor's good graces by working as hard as she can, and being as kind and true as she can, displaying "a child's unexacting love, which asks so little and gives so freely - the love that will overcome fear and pain." It is only when he, together with Lily's father, pushes his star pupil too far, expecting too much from such a frail young child, that Colonel Russell realizes just how selflessly devoted his 'baby' has been to him, and how much she has taken to heart his habitual sternness and lack of overt affection. When Lily slips into a serious illness, the Colonel realizes in turn just how devoted he is to her - but is it too late to make amends, and show her the tenderness he feels...?

On some levels, Colonel Russell's Baby is rather ridiculous, and I often found its juxtaposition of saintly, frail young heroine with stern, unbending teacher, rather melodramatic, during the course of my reading. Each character, whether it was the little girl who led her elders to a better way by her pure-hearted example, or the stern teacher who was full of love and tenderness he simply didn't know how to express, felt somewhat overdone at times, and I found myself agreeing with the critic in The Spectator, who opined in an 1899 review that "It seems to us absolutely impossible that a man such as Colonel Russell is described to be could have behaved as he did." Be that as it may, despite my consciousness of its overt sentimentality, I frequently found myself quite moved by the story here, even to the point of tearing up from time to time. Ellinor Davenport Adams had a gift for evoking emotion, even if her story-line sometimes veered into the realm of type and cliche, and as a reader I entered wholly into Lily's earnest hope of winning approval and love, even if I found the storyline unbelievable at times. Recommended to anyone looking for interesting, somewhat unusual, late-Victorian school stories, in which study and the pupil-teacher relationship, rather than student socialization, is the focus of the narrative.… (más)

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AbigailAdams26 | Mar 14, 2017 |

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