Writing on English folk dance, Elsie J. Oxenham, Jane Austen, May Day and maypole dancing, Elsie J. Oxenham and more!
After A01_Girls of the Hamlet Club, Elsie Oxenham published eight books, many dealing with the Camp Fire movement, before returning to Miss Macey’s school and establishing the true beginning of the story of the girls who live in the Abbey of Gracedieu. A02_The Abbey Girls was published in 1920 but is set two years after Cicely’s story, running from February through May 1916 in “Abbey Time.” There is no mention of the War.
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Elsie J. Oxenham’s fictional universe is a large and complicated one, and in the Abbey Girls’ world time moves slowly. Oxenham wrote more than 87 novels and numerous short stories, and she had multiple publishers. While there are some stand-alone novels, she tended to write series novels [Read more…]
Elsie J. Oxenham’s ninth book, published in October of 1914, is the “origins” story of the Abbey Girls series, and is one of the books that contains the most folk dancing, culminating in a lengthy description of a performance of folk dance and song to honor the first-crowned May Queen of the series. If you are a folk dancer [Read more…]