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#1: Elsie Books Author: claire, Location: South Wales

Posted: Thu Jul 29, 2004 8:59 pm

For anyone who ever wondered what they were like the first one is on-line

www.bravewc.com/haven/booksonline/ed.html

Haven't got past the first page yet but feel I should read it, even if just to see how bad they are

#2: Author: shoe__gal, Location: St Andrews, Scotland

Posted: Thu Jul 29, 2004 9:26 pm

Thanks for the link - I've always wondered, so just off to have a look!

#3: Author: Sarah_L, Location: Leeds

Posted: Thu Jul 29, 2004 9:29 pm

Just read the first couple of chapters. There's an awful lot of religion in there, but they seem interesting enough I suppose.

#4: Author: patmac, Location: Yorkshire England

Posted: Thu Jul 29, 2004 9:31 pm

If you think the CS girls were 'good' you'll have a different view after trying that, Claire!

I read part of the first one after reading about Jem giving them to Joey to read. I just wanted to shake everyone, including Elsie herself!

*I've bookmarked the site though Very Happy

#5: Author: Matthew, Location: Birmingham, England

Posted: Thu Jul 29, 2004 9:40 pm

What a horrible heatless bunch they are! I'm not advocate of violence towards women but I'd gleefully hit Mrs Dinsmore in an instance for her treatment of Elsie! And as for Elsie herself, what a drip. She's the sort of child that would drive me mad within a few hours, even while I was backing her up against the treatment she receives.

#6: Author: jenah, Location: Canada

Posted: Fri Jul 30, 2004 4:05 am

I have a bunch of them (got them at an auction in a box of other stuff years ago). They really are quite dreadful, in a fascinating way. I used to play a game- open one of the books at random, and find a page where Elsie was NOT crying, It was very difficult to find one!

She really has a quite unnatural (and rather creepy, I might add, to modern sensibilities) father fixation-especially in the second book. She solves this problem by marrying daddy's best friend, eventually- who dies after giving her several children, leaving her free to go back to Daddy. And they are very racist- although one might expect that, given the times they were published.

It's interesting that the first Elsie book was published in the same year as Little Women. The latter has held up amazingly well, while Elsie is mostly forgotten. The difference between good writing and believable characters and the alternative!

#7: Author: Lulie, Location: Middlesbrough

Posted: Fri Jul 30, 2004 8:11 am

*curls up in disgust and horror at the thought of marrying any of MY daddy's friends* <insert a big vomity smiley>

#8: Author: Cumbrian Rachel, Location: near High Wycombe

Posted: Fri Jul 30, 2004 8:17 am

The worst of it is that it's kind-of obvious it's going to happen from when Elsie is about 8! And the person she ends up marrying keeps making comments about 'if I were only 10 years younger' and so on. It really is rather concerning!

*has been 'lucky' enough to borrow some Elsie books from a friend*

#9: Author: Jennie, Location: Cambridgeshire

Posted: Fri Jul 30, 2004 10:04 am

Whilst I cannot approve in any way of the way that Elsie is treated by any of the Dinsmore family, she brings it down on herself. As Matthew said, she is a complete and utter drip.

Her grandmother is dreadful, what a ghastly woman!

#10: Author: Ellie, Location: Lincolnshire

Posted: Fri Jul 30, 2004 7:42 pm

I didn't get any further than the first page - life's to short to waste on reading stuff that, frankly, makes one long to commit infanticide.
Who could live with a childlike that!

#11: Author: patmac, Location: Yorkshire England

Posted: Fri Jul 30, 2004 7:45 pm

Ellie wrote:

I makes one long to commit infanticide.
Who could live with a childlike that!

Couldn't have put it better Ellie!

#12: Author: Laura, Location: London (ish)

Posted: Fri Jul 30, 2004 7:54 pm

Oh good grief. I was instantly put off by the fact that there was one full stop between the beginning and end of the first paragraph.

I always yearned to read one of those though (although now I know Jo must have had LOTS of patience) and now I can - if ever again I feel the need to...

#13: Author: Ally, Location: Jack Maynard's Dressing Room!!

Posted: Fri Jul 30, 2004 8:08 pm

I was put off my the quote at the beginning, I never read small text like that at the best of times!!

However, it is rather amusing, and so I might just keep going!

#14: Author: Emma, Location: Lichfield

Posted: Sat Jul 31, 2004 10:39 am

Ive just struggled to read the first few pages and I think that I'll give up now!!

#15: Author: Lesley, Location: Rochester, Kent

Posted: Sat Jul 31, 2004 11:07 am

Yuk!!!

#16: Author: Laura, Location: London (ish)

Posted: Sat Jul 31, 2004 3:18 pm

Out of desperation (I'd like to point out that you know you have too much time on your hands when you click on posts since my last visit and it says "no results match your criteria...") I tried reading the thing again (I got two paragraphs further this time) and saw:

Quote:

And Enna walked away with a pout on her pretty face, muttering that she would "tell mamma."

So is that where Joey (alright, EBD) got Mamma from??! Question

#17: Author: Jennie, Location: Cambridgeshire

Posted: Sat Jul 31, 2004 3:37 pm

I wouldn't know about that, but considering the amount of crying Elsie does, how can she be described as pretty? She must walk round with red, swollen eyes all the time.

#18: Author: Ruth, Location: Lincolnshire, England

Posted: Mon Aug 02, 2004 12:28 pm

It is sooooo soppy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Elsie is too good to live!!!!!

#19: Author: Carolyn P, Location: Lancaster, England

Posted: Mon Aug 02, 2004 7:00 pm

I have 8 or 9 of these and would love to get some more. The middle ones about Elsie's children are the most palatable, although they get a bit educational after a while, endless history and geography lessons given whilst travelling.

The worst thing is the way Elsie sits on her father's knee and they tell each other how much they love each other and fondle each other's hair...somehow seems very unhealthy.

There is somehting about them that keeps me reading however! Fascination with the awfullness maybe.

#20: Author: Jennie, Location: Cambridgeshire

Posted: Mon Aug 02, 2004 7:35 pm

That might be it. Really, they are so sickly sweet together, it's nauseating.

#21: Author: Ellie, Location: Lincolnshire

Posted: Tue Aug 03, 2004 12:26 am

Carolyn P wrote:

I have 8 or 9 of these and would love to get some more. The middle ones about Elsie's children are the most palatable,
.

You mean, someone actually chose to marry her?

#22: Author: Laura, Location: London (ish)

Posted: Tue Aug 03, 2004 8:19 am

But wasnt it like her father's uncle or something??! Confused

- why dont we have being sick smiley?!

#23: Author: Susan, Location: Carlisle

Posted: Tue Aug 03, 2004 9:30 am

Did he choose to marry her or would it be a type of arranged marriage so that she would be kept close to home?

#24: Author: Chelsea, Location: Your Imagination

Posted: Tue Aug 03, 2004 1:59 pm

Doesn't she marry that old guy she meets in the first book? A friend of her father's (or something). I've only read the first book, but it is definately foreshadowed there. Plus the Elsie's kids (mentioned in CS) have the last name of the guy in the first book.

#25: Author: Cumbrian Rachel, Location: near High Wycombe

Posted: Tue Aug 03, 2004 4:58 pm

That's right Chelsea - that's who she marries! Rather concerning!!!

#26: Author: Carolyn P, Location: Lancaster, England

Posted: Tue Aug 03, 2004 8:33 pm

Thta's right, it was her father's friend she married, and it was very creepy.

Having said that they do seem to love each other, and she does gain a lot of independence through it.

#27: Author: Shander, Location: Canada

Posted: Fri Aug 06, 2004 1:24 am

I didn't mind it the first time I read it, but I just went back and oh my!!!!!
Sad

#28: Author: Rebecca, Location: Kendal/Oxford

Posted: Fri Aug 06, 2004 5:42 pm

The only one I've read is either Elsie's Motherhood or Children. Elsie didn't actually annoy me that much in it - probably because her children were even more nauseating!

#29: Author: Grembles, Location: Norwich

Posted: Sat Aug 07, 2004 8:11 am

To my shame I have all of these books, some in nice old hardbacks but the majority in PB that I got recently from Amazon.

I am compulsively drawn to them and think that it is perhaps time I sought help - especially as I now want to collect and read the Mildred series too.

#30: Author: Ellie, Location: Lincolnshire

Posted: Sat Aug 07, 2004 10:12 am

And who on earth is Mildred?

*Sends Grembles a stack of William pbs to counteract the effects of Elsie*

#31: Author: Helen, Location: Melbourne, Australia

Posted: Fri Aug 13, 2004 5:28 am

I did read the first Elsie book a few months ago and I did find it rather, well, strange.

The Religious aspect of it didn't worry me too much, I just saw that as it being a Victorian childrens book.

What I did find worrying was Elsie's father. He is away in Europe for most of Elsie's life doing who knows what and comes back to act like a real tyrant.

As someone mentioned in an earlier posting, his friend who later becomes Elsie's husband that was rather worrying and unpleasant to me. In one scene they were positively flirting. "If you were ten years older I would kiss you" and, from memory, Elsie's answer is described as being "archly". My mother read it and thought the same too.

What an unpleasant lot the relatives are especially that boy, ?Arthur. Doesn't he come to a bad end in a later book?

One aspect I did find interesting when looking up Elsie on the Net when she marries her husband he says she does not have to promise to obey him and should follow her own conscience especially on Religious matters. (Actually I found this on a very extreme right wing site and they were criticizing the books for those comments!!!)

#32: Author: Lisa, Location: South Coast of England

Posted: Thu Aug 19, 2004 9:48 pm

Oh goodness, it's just dreadful! This is the kind of thing I imagine Jane Eyre (for I'm convinced she's real, you know) being forced to read at Lowood!

She wouldn't survive long at the CS, they woudl think her 'frightfully pi' - and probably something of a spineless jellyfish! Laughing

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