A BRIEF BIOGRAPHY
Elsie Jeanette Dunkerley was born at Southport, England in 1880, to Margery Anderson and William Arthur Dunkerley, a novelist in his own right but whose works (penned under the pseudonym 'John Oxenham') are now overshadowed by those of his eldest daughter. Elsie had three sisters - Marjorie (or 'Maida'), Theodora and Erica, and two brothers, - Roderic and Hugo. The family in the first years of the 20th century was living quite comfortably on William's proceeds from his mainly devotional writings in Bedfords Park, Ealing, West London. Little is known about Elsie's early life. Authors attempting to fill in the details have had to rely on the dedications in her books, as admitted by Rosemary Auchmuty in her useful paperback on girls' fiction, 'A World of Girls'.

Elsie's first book, 'Goblin Island’, was set in Scotland. Her mother was Scottish and the family spent many holidays north of the border. The book concerned an unmarried female writer who served as her father-writer's secretary and is thought to have been partly biographical. "Goblin Island' was so successful that Elsie decided to become a full-time author. Both she and her sister Erica adopted her father's pen name. Unlike most writers who stick to one publisher, Elsie used 17 different ones throughout her lifetime; quite possibly more than any other English children's author.

Elsie was a keen member of the English Folk Dance Society and used her experiences to form her fictitious 'Hamlet Club' who held an annual crowning of a May Queen at their dance meetings.
The Club was later to become the central theme of the "Abbey" series which was by far Elsie’s most popular series of books. She attended the EFDS vacation schools at Cheltenham and Chelsea. The family moved to Worthing in 1922 by which time Elsie had become a 'Guardian' in the American Camp Fire Movement, another subject which often came up in her stories. She was a keen naturalist, with a love of animals (all the cats in her stories reflected ones she'd met in real life), music and dancing.

The Oxenham family was very close, a point quite obvious to readers of the biography on Elsie's father, authored by her sister, Erica - and also to Elsie's readers with a number of books being dedicated to members of her family. Elsie Oxenham passed away in a Worthing nursing home, in January 1960.

Elsie Jeanette Oxenham wrote 87 books and many short stories for girls between 1907 and 1959. Her books, particularly the Abbey series were extremely popular in Britain, Australia & New Zealand. Now the girls who read her stories are grown up and many have become collectors who avidly search for the missing titles in the series. There are at least 3 clubs catering for EJO collectors, one in each of the countries mentioned above. In Australia there are at least 400 collectors of these books.

The appeal of these books and most of the schoolgirl series of the time was the gradual development of the characters and their lives. 
Unlike many Schoolboy series where the characters stay much the same age through several or dozens of books, the girls in these 
series grow up. The Abbey series starts with a group of girls aged 14-17years old and ends with their children being about this age. 
The characters became friends to the readers and to find out what happened next always held and still does hold immense appeal.

The Abbey series (including main connecting stories) contains 45 books, of these only 22 are fairly easy to locate 
and 15 or so of the remainder are almost impossible to find in Australia. Occasional copies turn up but these are few and far between.

Monica Godfrey, the former editor of the Abbey Chronicle in the UK. has written a biography of EJO - a must for all collectors. 
It has been published by Girls Gone By.

EJO: A Study, by Stella Waring and Sheila Ray, is being published as ISLAND TO ABBEY, again by Girls Gone By.

Lighting The Fire; Elsie J. Oxenham, the Abbey Girls and the English Folk Dance Revival, by Alison Thompson   

Elsie J. Oxenham (1880-1960) wrote nearly ninety books for English school-girls, forty of which, the "Abbey Girls" series, incorporated 
English folk dancing into the school-girl plots and romances. Cecil Sharp (one of the founders of the English Folk Dance Society), Maud Karpeles, May Gadd (the long-time director of the Country Dance & Song Society of America), Helen Kennedy North and other teachers 
of the early folk revival make appearances in Oxenham's works. Some of Oxenham's descriptions and comments are detailed enough to provide the reader with insight into the early folk revival in England: the range of dances available, methods of teaching dance and the attitudes and impressions of devotees and onlookers towards dancing. Oxenham wrote in picturesque and romantic terms about the pleasure that folk dance brings to its participants. Her work thus represents one easily accessed window onto the romantic fervour that fuelled the folk dance revival in both England and the United States. Lighting The Fire summarizes and analyses Oxenham's work as it relates to English folk dancing. Published in 1998 by The Squirrel Hill Press. 84 pages. Fully indexed. ISBN 0-9666563-0-X

Allison Thompson is a folk musician, dancer and writer.
Her most recent work,
Dancing Through Time: Western Social Dance in Literature, 1400 - 1918,  Selections, was published by McFarland and Company, Inc., 1998.

Lighting the Fire can be ordered from Allison Thompson at 1623 Denniston Avenue, Pittsburgh PA 15217 USA for $10.00 + S&H ($US, please).  or email for more details allisonthompson@juno.com

You'll find Allison's publishing site, The Squirrel Hill Press', at www.musicsleuth.com/sqpress

Here is a complete list of books by EJO books in alphabetical order
(omitting "a" or "the" at the start of the title).

Due to the interest shown in EJO’s books both in Britain & overseas 2 of Elsie’s previously unpublished stories have been published by her family in the last few years - "A divided patrol" & "Deb leads the dormitory".

Not included in the above list are the books which form part of another book, as follows:
GIRLS OF SQUIRREL HOUSE
 GIRLS OF ROCKLANDS SCHOOL
 SECOND TERM AT ROCKLANDS SCHOOL
 THIRD TERM AT ROCKLANDS SCHOOL
 CALL OF THE ABBEY.

ABBEY BOOKS IN READING ORDER

* Not set at the Abbey but really part of the series,
**Connectors (stories about characters that later appear in Abbey books)

Collins' explanation for the retrospective titles in the series, 
taken from the reverse of Gladys Lister's STARLIGHT BELONGS TO ME dust jacket..