The Abbey Series of British novels by Elsie J. Oxenham comprises 38 titles which were published between 1914 and 1959. The first title, Girls of the Hamlet Club set the scene for the school aspects of the series, but it is the second title, The Abbey Girls, that introduces The Abbey – almost a character within the series in its own right – a romantic ruin that inspires love for it as a quiet, peaceful place, and creates the wish to behave in the public-spirited tradition of the early Cistercian monks. These qualities go some way towards explaining the popularity of the series.
Elsie Oxenham's Abbey Series
Girls of the Hamlet Club (1914) is set in Miss Macey's school in Wycombe and in the surrounding hamlets and villages. It tells how Cicely Hobart comes to Whiteleaf to be near her maternal grandparents. She has been living in a London suburb, but will now board with an old family servant, and go to school in Wycombe. She finds that the school is split into two sets, the 'real school' and the 'hamlets' who are mainly girls who have come to the school on scholarships, but live in the country hamlets, and cannot afford extras like the clubs, which set high subscriptions to keep them out. Cicely organises the outsiders into The Hamlet Club with a motto 'To be or not to be' from Shakespeare's Hamlet and the Whiteleaf Cross, a local landmark, as their badge. As the club develops, its members learn Morris and Country Dancing, and prepare a May Queen ceremony for Cicely's grandparents. The Hamlet Club comes to the rescue of the school when the leading actors in the school play come down with measles; they sacrifice their secret for the good of the school and Miriam Honor is crowned as the first Queen.
The Abbey Girls (1920) is the second title of the series, and tells of two red-headed cousins, Joan and Joy Shirley, and how, in different ways, they manage to get places at Miss Macey's School. These two characters are the original 'Abbey Girls' and the series continues with stories about them and the friends they make throughout, not only their schooldays, but also their adult lives. An early friend, Jen Robins, soon becomes a major character, and others, Jandy Mac, Rosamund and Maidlin, can all claim the sobriquet 'Abbey Girl'. By the end of the series these six are all married with children, and the adventures of the daughters of Joan, Joy, Jandy and Jen, at the same school, have come to the fore.
There was no 'Abbey School' as such, although The Girls of the Abbey School (1921) tells how the school spent a term in Abinger Hall, the home of Joy Shirley, which had the ruined abbey of Gracedieu in its grounds. The Abbey was based on Cleeve Abbey in Somerset – an English Heritage Property open to the public in the summer months. Oxenham 'moved' this ruin to Oxfordshire, near the Buckinghamshire border, for the plot of The Abbey Girls, to tie the cousins in with the characters from the first book, Girls of the Hamlet Club.
Main Abbey Series (indicating best reading order)
° = published as a Collins 'Fat Orange'
† = published as a Collins 'Seagull'
‡ = published as a Collins 'Small Red Abbey'
g = reprinted in paperback by Girls Gone By Publishers
e = reprinted in paperback by The EJO Society
Notes to table
1. Jen of the Abbey School takes place during and after the events of The Abbey Girls Go Back to School and should therefore be read immediately after it.
2. The Retrospective Titles cover the period between The Girls of The Abbey School and The Abbey Girls Go Back to School, and are probably best read in that position, while remembering that this produces a few inconsistencies with books set later, but written earlier.
3. Maid of the Abbey should be read before Jandy Mac Comes Back.
4. Guardians of the Abbey is partly concurrent with A Fiddler for the Abbey, but should ideally be read after it.
5. The first chapter of The Song of the Abbey overlaps the last of A Dancer from the Abbey.
6. N.B. Two Queens at the Abbey was only ever published as a 'Small Red Abbey'.