Ellen Douglas Deland

The five motherless Franklin children - sixteen-year-old Edith, fourteen-year-old twins Cynthia and Jack, and youngsters Janet and Willy - are unprepared for the advent of a new stepmother in their midst, and for the changes she brings to their lives at Oakleigh, the family home outside of Boston. Although the younger four are quickly reconciled to the new Mrs. Franklin, who is a loving and understanding young woman, Edith, who feels she is being supplanted as the mistress of the house, harbors a bitter sense of resentment that refuses to be softened. Meanwhile, Mrs. Franklin's younger brother, Neil Gordon, also joins the Franklin family circle, leading to much heartache when he is falsely accused of wrongdoing in a complicated series of misunderstandings. When Edith is injured in a car accident, and Neil runs away from home, it seems as if nothing will ever be put right again at Oakleigh...

The fourth book I have read from late 19th/early20th-century children's novelist Ellen Douglas Deland, following upon The Girls of Dudley School (1911), The Friendship of Anne (1907), and Cyntra (1915), Oakleigh, which was first published in 1895, was an engaging read, one which kept me entertained, and occasionally left me moved. Deland ably captures the challenges facing 'blended' families, and her depiction of a young girl's fear and resentment of her new step-mother still feels relevant today, despite some of the outdated fashions and social ideas present in the story. Although the resolution of Edith's anger is rather melodramatic - authors of vintage girls' fare seem to love using accident and illness to teach their characters a lesson - the anger itself is quite realistic. I continue to be impressed that Deland includes such flawed female characters in her stories, but resists the impulse to demonize them. Of course, there is some classist content here, most notable in the depiction of Tony Bronson, the nouve riche classmate of Neil's, who is, despite the outward trappings of respectability, no true gentleman, but other aspects of the tale feel very contemporary. I believe that this was Deland's first published novel, and it was certainly a promising beginning! Finishing it, I feel confirmed in my decision to track down more of her stories.… (más)

Sixteen-year-old Cyntra Waring had lived all of her life at Escott House, near the village of Dorking, in Surrey. Raised by her maternal grandmother Lady Escott since the loss of her mother, who had died when she was still an infant, Cyntra hardly knew her American father, the novelist George Waring, and had never met her American stepmother and her three half-siblings, Juliet, Mildred and George (the younger). When her Uncle Bertie unexpectedly married later in life, and Lady Escott decided to leave her long-time home, Cyntra, who had absorbed her grandparent's distaste for Americans, was determined to follow her into exile in Brussels, rather than go and live with her unknown family in New York. But when tragedy struck, and she was deprived of her grandmother, Cyntra found herself sailing from Antwerp for a new life. In New York some things were very different - she lived in an apartment, rather than a spacious country home; attended a day school, rather than being educated by a governess; and was allowed to go about by herself, rather than being required to take a servant - but others were very similar. Americans, Cyntra discovered, were not so different from the English, and she was soon a happy member of the Waring household, and a new citizen of the United States. There were adjustments to be made, of course, but eventually her circle of friends and family grew considerably, taking in not just the Warings, but their cousins the Ruffords.

Although not as entertaining as Ellen Douglas Deland's school stories, The Friendship of Anne or The Girls of Dudley School, I found Cyntra to be a fairly engaging story. There were some interesting parallels between it and Little Lord Fauntleroy, which I greatly enjoyed as a young girl. Unlike Burnett's classic tale, which follows a young New York boy who is whisked away from his middle-class life in America to an aristocratic life in England, Deland's story is one of an English girl raised in an old-fashioned and distinctly aristocratic style, who finds herself living a modern middle-class life in New York. The contrast was interesting to me, although I'm not sure if the author meant there to be any reference to Fauntleroy. I was struck by the realism that Deland employed, in depicting some of the difficulties faced by Cyntra and the Warings, in adjusting to life with one another. Juliet's jealousy regarding Cyntra's room, and the all-important desk, Cyntra's fury at finding her space invaded, when she is used to being an only child. Although these troubles seemed too easily resolved, I though Deland was perceptive in her understanding of their significance. I was also struck by the theme of kinship between England and America that the author explores in her story. Published in 1915, as Europe became ever more entangled in the horrors of WWI, but two years before the entry of the United States into that conflict, it is difficult not to read Cyntra as a response (at least in part) to these events. Not only does Cyntra overcome her prejudice against Americans, but she becomes a bridge between her English family, in the form of Eddie Escott and his mother, and her American one, in the form of Rosamund Rufford. When Eddie departs from New York at the close of the story, intending to return to England and enlist in the British Army, his fiancé Rosamund isn't long to follow, making it clear in what direction the author felt that the United States should move, as it concerned involvement in the war. The sequel, The Waring Girls, is apparently a further exploration of the characters' involvement in the First World War. All in all, this was a book with both an engaging story and some historical interest. Recommended to readers who enjoy vintage girls' fare, or who are interested in the depiction of WWI in American children's fiction.… (más)

Shy Sydney Stuart comes to the Wickersham girls' boarding school in Kingsbridge, Massachusetts, very much conscious of the dark secret in her family's past, and of her status as a new girl. Almost immediately smitten with popular golden girl Anne Talbot, a friendly, essentially good-hearted, but far too impulsively judgmental fellow student, Sydney longs to have the friendship of this other pupil. Her roommate Bertha Macy in the meantime, a fellow new girl who is lacking in the good breeding and high principles of the other Wickersham students, also desires to win the friendship of Anne, who is the most popular girl in school, and the president of the secret Kay Cue See club. Over the course of the year many dramas unfold, from the mystery of the anonymous letters sent to Anne regarding a girl with a scandal in her family, to Sydney's burgeoning friendship with Mrs. Braithwaite, the little blind lady living next door to the school - all of them somehow tied to the Stuart family tragedy, and all of them effecting just who eventually wins the coveted friendship of Anne...

The second school-story I have read from Ellen Douglas Deland, after The Girls of Dudley School, The Friendship of Anne was an engaging tale, and more than enjoyable enough to convince me to try and track down some of the author's other work for young people. None of the themes here are particularly surprising given the genre - the new girl who must find her feet at school, the false accusation against the heroine, resulting in much heartache until the mystery is cleared up - although the Stuart family secret (Sydney's brother Philip accidentally shot and killed his best friend, during a hunting venture, and has been haunted by the fact ever since) certainly was. As with The Girls of Dudley School, there was some outdated social content here, particularly as it relates to how girls should behave to boys, and how this indicates whether they are 'ladies' or not. Deland calmly asserts at one point that boys will try to push as far as they can, but will only respect girls who keep them in line, demonstrating this through the character of Bertha, whom the young men of the story roundly criticize and ridicule amongst themselves. A clear warning is obviously intended for more 'boy-crazy' readers! However that may be, on the whole this was an entertaining book, one I would recommend to fans of the school-story genre, particularly those looking for less-common American examples, as well as to readers interested in vintage girls' fare.… (más)

Angelica Stafford travels east from her home in Philadelphia to attend boarding school at the opening of this American example of the school-story genre, published in 1911. Her circle of friends at the Dudley School, located somewhere outside of New York City, include the Rutherford twins, Sally and Nan, and the beautiful but frequently haughty Sylvia Desmond. Sylvia, who exerts a strange fascination over those girls who become her friends, manages to embroil Nan in trouble when she convinces her to sneak away from school for a day-trip to New Haven, there to meet up with Sylvia's brother, Eugene. The resulting imbroglio eventually leads to much awkwardness and unhappiness in the Rutherford twins' relationship. Sylvia, in the meanwhile, made desperately unhappy by her relative poverty in relationship to the other girls, 'borrows' another girl's dress for the big Harvard-Yale football game, with predictably disastrous results. Although she manages to avoid detection, it weighs heavily upon her mind. Angelica, in the meantime, is opening up in this new environment, thrilled to be amongst girls her own age. Eventually her own relationship with Sylvia - hinted at throughout the story - is revealed, as is Sylvia's dishonest actions...

Apparently the second school-story penned by Ellen Douglas Deland, following upon the 1907 The Friendship of Anne, this is a fairly engaging novel for young readers, full of vintage charm. There are one or two unpleasant moments, when outdated social beliefs come to the fore - Sylvia becomes incensed when Angelica thoughtlessly asks if Creole people are somehow "like the colored," maintaining that there isn't "a drop of Negro blood" in her people; while much distress is caused to the Rutherford brothers when they discover that their sister had been seen having luncheon at the New Haven train station with a young man. The horror! - what will their college friends think, they wonder...? Still, there is also much to entertain and engage, from the depiction of an all-girls' world - something scholars have noted as the chief appeal of the girls' school story - to the interpersonal relations between the various characters. Sylvia herself is an interesting character, depicted as more misguided than malicious. Although led to do wrong, often for love of her brother, although sometimes also for vanity's sake, she also has a conscience, and when she discovers that her actions with regard to the 'borrowed' dress lead to suffering for a poor young boy, she feels she must take action. There are few surprises here - the resolution of the storyline involving her relationship to Angelica is readily apparent - but it is still worthwhile getting to the end. Recommended to school-story fans, particularly for those looking for less common American examples of the genre.… (más)