The Girls of St. Cyprian's: A Tale of School Life

Angela BrazilProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.0
Word count
419K words
Chapters
42

Tags

English Originals Children's Literature Campus LifeFamily BondsGrowing UpYouthful VibeHeartwarming NarrativeYouth Reading

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.The Girls of St. Cyprian's: A Tale of School Life by Angela BrazilAuthor: Brazil, Angela, 1869-1947,Language: English, Class: PZ: Language and Literatures: Juvenile belles lettres, Release Date: Aug 22, 2011

Editor's review

This school story is a typical work by the English author Angela Brazil (1869–1947). Set at St. Cyprian's, a girls' school, it follows the pupils' daily lessons, friendships, rivalries, and growing up, narrated in a brisk, cheerful style. Brazil excels at rendering the atmosphere of early twentieth-century English boarding schools through closely observed detail and a vivid ensemble of characters; readers encounter entertaining school anecdotes alongside the girls' growth as they learn independence, responsibility, and how to get along in communal life. As a free public-domain ebook from Project Gutenberg, it is easily accessible and suits light reading in the original English or use as a reference sample for the history of children's literature and the school-story genre. It is best read chapter by chapter in spare moments rather than for strong plot conflict, savoring the relationships and period setting. Readers studying Brazil's work or the English school-story tradition may also read it alongside comparable works to observe its narrative patterns and values.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Not a good fit for

Reading tips

  1. First skim the chapter titles to grasp the characters and the sequence of events, then read chapter by chapter
  2. Mark unfamiliar school expressions and look them up together after finishing a chapter
  3. Read two or three chapters at a fixed time each week, using a simple character chart to aid memory
  4. After reading, compare with other school stories and note this book's narrative and characterization features

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12
  13. 13
  14. 14
  15. 15
  16. 16
  17. 17
  18. 18
  19. 19
  20. 20
  21. 21
  22. 22
  23. 23
  24. 24
  25. 25
  26. 26
  27. 27
  28. 28
  29. 29
  30. 30
  31. 31
  32. 32
  33. 33
  34. 34
  35. 35
  36. 36
  37. 37
  38. 38
  39. 39
  40. 40
  41. 41
  42. 42

FAQ

Is this book suitable for English beginners to read directly? Not really for complete beginners. The original is an early twentieth-century English novel with many period school expressions and descriptive passages; it is better attempted after gaining some vocabulary and experience with long sentences, or with the aid of a dictionary and a reading guide.
What is the story mainly about? Is it a single plotline? The book follows the school life of the girls at St. Cyprian's, linking everyday events of several characters to show their studies, friendships, and growth. It is closer to a group-portrait school narrative than a story built around a single mystery.
What should be noted about using the Project Gutenberg edition? This edition is a free public-domain e-book, convenient to download and share, but it usually contains no modern annotations or introduction. Readers may pair it with background materials; when citing, keep the source information and check the text for completeness and accuracy.

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Angela Brazil Author · British · 1869–1947

Angela Brazil (1869–1947) was a British children's author and is regarded as one of the pioneers of the modern girls' boarding-school story. She published her first work in 1904 and went on to publish nearly fifty schoolgirl novels over her lifetime; twenty-seven of her works are held in this collection, including A Fourth Form Friendship, The Fortunes of Philippa, Bosom Friends, A Pair of Schoolgirls, For the Sake of the School, A Fortunate Term, The Nicest Girl in the School and A Patriotic Schoolgirl. Her stories are mostly set in girls' boarding schools and centre on friendship, rivalry, communal life and growing up among classmates. Her brisk, lively style and attention to her heroines' personalities and everyday school life made her popular with young readers until the mid-twentieth century. Public information on her early education and private life is limited, and her literary contribution lies chiefly in opening up the school-story genre and in her sustained output. She died in Coventry in 1947.