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ANGELA BRAZIL Page finalised 9th October, 2010. Just ONE page on the Collecting Books and Magazines web site based in Australia. BOOK List - Alphabetical. |
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ANGELA BRAZIL Page finalised 9th October, 2010. Just ONE page on the Collecting Books and Magazines web site based in Australia. BOOK List - Alphabetical. |
| bc | Angela Brazil was arguably the
first author of girls' books to write her stories from
the characters' point of view - and the first to write
entertaining rather than instructional stories. Not for
her readers did Angela take the high sermonising ground.
She believed in writing amusing and enjoyable tales in
which the characters acted like normal human beings. Angela was born on November 30, 1868, in Preston, Lancashire, England. Her parents were quite well off. The Brazils already had three children - Clarence, 10; Walter, 8; and Amy, 6. Her father, a rather remote figure like many fathers of the period, was involved in the cotton manufacturing industry. |
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| bc | Angela's mother decided from the start that Angela was not going to be sent off to a boarding school like she had been. Instead, Angela, 4, was sent to a small, local private ladies school that encouraged pupils in art, literature and music. According to an article in 'This England', Spring 1985 edition, she was removed after one morning for misbehaving! The family moved to Egremont in the Wirral and Angela enrolled more successfully in 'The Turrets', Wallasey, at the age of six. She later moved up to Manchester Secondary at the age of nine, then to Ellerslie and eventually down to Heatherley, a school for budding artists in London. |
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Right Angela Brazil as a young lady, not much older than the characters in her novels. Left Autobiography published by Blackie. |
| bc | Following her father's death,
Angela and her mother took to the road, seeing much of
Europe, although for a time Angela looked after her
doctor brother, Walter, back in Preston. Having grown
weary of the continent, she spent her remaining years as
Walter's housekeeper in Coventry, faithfully looking
after him until her death in 1947. Angela was extremely
civic-minded and involved herself in many local charities
and clubs. At various times she gave assistance to the
Natural History and Science Society, the City Guild and
the YWCA. Like many children's writers of the period, Angela began her writing career contributing to magazines. At that time, she developed a strong interest in Welsh mythology, due most likely to her parents spending holidays in a cottage in Wales, together with her earlier training in botany and other brushes with nature and the outdoors. It was thanks to her friends and possibly her sister Amy that she finally began work on a novel at the age of 35. This book, 'A Terrible Tomboy', appeared on the shelves in 1905. This was not strictly a school story but Angela's second novel, 'The Fortunes of Philippa', fulfilled the guidelines of that genre admirably. More than 40 other school stories were to follow but unlike other writers of such tales, she never used the same characters again. Each story stands on its own, distinct from all the others. Her books are filled with well-delineated characters. Angela never married and again, this was not unusual among writers of children's' stories. Writing was - and is - a solitary occupation not easily understood by non-writers.
Once Angela's stories became popular, she was in demand from the various publishers of children's annuals. Blackie, her first publisher, was a prolific producer of annuals and her short stories can be seen in many of the latter in the second and later decades of this century. One outstanding annual to which she contributed was 'The Jolly Book', an up-market publication which rivaled the better known 'Chatterbox'. In 1925 there was published an account of her early life: 'My Own Schooldays'. Angela Brazil was the first of the 'modern' writers of girls' stories: the equivalent of Charles Hamilton in respect of boys' stories. Reference
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Back to Collecting Books & Magazines main index page. Thanks, Philip, of the OLD BOOKS and AUTHORS site, for the birth date correction. |
