Elsie at Viamede: Book 18 (The Original Elsie Classics Series Volume 18) [Mass Market Paperback]

Martha Finley (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 2000 | Age Level: 9 and up | Grade Level: 4 and up | Series: The Original Elsie Classics Series Volume 18 (Book 18)

This book is a facsimile reprint and may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Biographical sketches on Martha Finley agree that she was born in Chillicothe, Ohio, in April, 1828, the daughter of Dr. James Brown Finley and his wife and first cousin, Maria Theresa Brown Finley, and that she lived a quiet life. In spite of this—or perhaps because of it—her biographers seem to have considerable trouble agreeing on much else about her life. She was born either April 26 or April 28 and lived in Circleville, Ohio, until she was six [3] or eight, when the family moved to South Bend, Indiana. Except for a year at school in Philadelphia, she lived in South Bend until 1853, when she was twenty-five, possibly teaching in Indiana schools from 1851-1853. In 1853, her parents or father died, and she moved either to Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, to teach, or to New York for a year. In 1854, she either moved to an unspecified town in Pennsylvania, to write for the Presbyterian Publishing Board. Martha Finley is best known for her Elsie Dinsmore series, melodramatic and sentimental fiction focusing on Elsie's trials and the solace offered her by her religious beliefs. Originally written under the pseudonym "Martha Farquharson" (Gaelic for "Finley"), the series lasted for 28 volumes, published over a period of 38 years. Much has been written about the series, discussing everything from its tear-soaked heroine and her relationship with her father to its enduring popularity during the 19th century. Elsie, however, was only a little over a quarter of Ms. Finley's total works. A second series, Mildred Keith, ran for seven volumes and chronicles the life of Mildred Keith and her family as well providing glimpses of Elsie Dinsmore's early years. Mildred is a slightly more realistic character than Elsie, with spunk and independence and without Elsie's perpetual penchant for tears and Biblical quotations. Martha Finley also wrote more than fifty short books or pamphlets, primarily for children, which were published by the Presbyterian Board of Publication and/or the Presbyterian Publishing Committee. The majority of these appeared between 1856 and 1876 in series or as individual volumes. Their titles and publishers suggest that they, too, were didactic literature, with a strong emphasis on religion. Much of Martha Finley's writing was quickly forgotten, but Elsie persevered for over seventy-five years. In 1945, the first 12 volumes were still in print in the United States and England and had sold over 5,000,000 million copies. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 9 and up
  
• Mass Market Paperback: 239 pages
• Publisher: Cumberland House (November 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 158182114X
• ISBN-13: 978-1581821147
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.1 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 1.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,110,861 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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1 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Elsie, although evangelically Christian, has her own problems, June 17, 2011

By 

Sharon Karpinski (Albuquerque, NM) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Elsie at Viamede, Book 18 (Paperback)

I've read nearly all the Elsie books, including Viamede. I've followed the Elsie Series since I was a child myself because my grandmother loved the Elsie books when she was a girl, although my mother found them a little hilarious. Mother was right. I've read Elsie because I am fascinated by the author's prejudices, NOT because Elsie is easily readable or representative of the sort of christianity in which I believe.

As an aside---and in defense of Grandma---I'm 66 years old. My Grandma was born in 1894. Elsie's life, although economically far different for my grandmother's, was only a generation or two removed from Grandma's world.

Reasons why I'm agin' Elsie as children's reading:

1. Elsie is a antebellum, wealthy southern child. Although she treats the slaves kindly and loves her old Mammy, in the first books of the series, which are set pre-Civil War, slavery is an accepted and acceptable practice and clearly one that keeps the various estates that Elsie and her relatives live at running and viable. After the war, although Elsie as a young woman opposed the KKK, she still does not seem to understand that the institution of slavery was most unchristian. Mammy, of course, stays with the family after the war. I cannot remember whether her wages are ever mentioned or, indeed, if she receives any.

2. Elsie's father is a pathological case---he hates Elsie because she looks like her mother and her mother died in childbirth. Horace, the father, abandons his child for years. At around age seven, in the first book, Elsie has yet to meet her father. Eventually, of course, Elsie wins him over and he becomes the beloved Papa she has always dreamed of but his extreme revulsion in the first two books is neither realistic nor healthy. Furthermore, the man is a martinet with distinct, and peculiar, child-rearing beliefs, even after he grows to love his daughter. For example, he forbids Elsie to eat a large selection of foods that as far as I am aware, have few damaging aftereffects. Horace believes that hot biscuits will kill you.

3. Elsie has a few psychological twitches herself. She marries very young and her choice of husband is her father's best friend, Mr. Travilla, who is a generation older than Elsie. Travilla sires children and then conveniently dies in Elsie's Widowhood, which is a book written fairly early in the series. I find the fact that Elsie marries so young to someone so much older a bad role model, particularly for young Christian women today because so many of the more fundamentalist groups embrace that exact pattern of marriage. As we have seen from the recent fundamentalist Mormon court cases, marrying very young women---girls, really---to much older men can easily exploit the young brides. In fact, in some cases, what happens could be called rape. That situation is NOT Elsie's for she loves and respects Travilla, but the entire marital set-up in the books reinforces a bad practice that is in resurgence today.

4. Elsie, although very bright and very rich, receives almost no formal education. As in 3 above, I believe that this fact establishes a bad pattern for young women. Not all of us want to go to college but all of us should be allowed the choice. I think that Elsie's entire family would have been horror-struck if she had announced she wished to attend even an entirely women's college.

5. Many fundamentalist home schoolers highly recommend the Elsie books as proper examples of good Christian life. See 1 through 4 above. The Elsie books, although excellent primers for teaching men and boys their natural superiority, are hell on women and horses.

6. Finally, the Elsie books are wildly non-ecumenical. Roman Catholics are actually represented as practicing evil popery. Any other religious choices aren't mentioned at all. Elsie never met a Jew in her life. That's probably good because I hate to think what she would have believed about him or her.

Basically, Elsie was a children's series that reflected what was a fairly uncommon way of life even a hundred years ago. As a social document, it is interesting, As a recommended book for modern children, it's not a good choice at all. Instead, chose period books that support ethical values without instilling undue prejudice. I'm thinking of all of Louisa May Alcott, even her lesser works. Her heroines are practicing Christians (the father in Little Women was even a minister), charitable, mindful of others, and always striving for self-improvement without exploiting servants, embracing enslavement, or advocating May-December marriages. They take pity on the poor Irish around them and try to help out the hapless immigrants rather than condemning their religious beliefs. Children can also more easily identify with the March girls or Daisy and Demi Brook because Louisa's families are middle class. Elsie, the poor little rich girl, represents a most unusually privileged way of life.