Elsie J. Oxenham published a number of short stories in her long and complicated career. Many of them eventually became chapters in books; apparently only a few were stand-alone. Based on the only two that I have read, I don’t think her skill was in the classic short story; she needed the broader canvas of a full-length novel. But these two stories, published in 1921 and 1923, are of interest to the folk dancer, although one of them, at least, is weak as stories go.

—And here I apologize—I should have written about them around the time that I posted on A11_The Abbey Girls Go Back to School, but forgot that they were in my box of treasures! Mine are photocopies without provenance that Monica Godfrey supplied me with, but Waring and Ray in their study of Oxenham’s works, Island to Abbey, provide the dates of publication.—

Dancing Honour (1921) and Honour Your Partner (1923) were published at the height of EJO’s obsession with folk dancing. [Read more…]