A first in the world of books about boarding schools: The Fortunes of Philippa, an adventure of a young girl who moves from South America to England.
Brazil rhymes with dazzle
(Go ahead; read that again for the rhyme scheme …)
Angela Brazil published The Fortunes of Philippa in 1906. This story is based heavily on the life of her own mother, who, as a child, moved from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (which, incidentally, does not rhyme with the author’s last name—at least in the U.S.). Though Ms. Brazil took some liberties with the names of the regions and culture in the descriptions in the first chapter, her grandfather did indeed send her mother to England, where she found adventures (and misadventures!) in going to boarding school.
Philippa is the first in a number of stories meant to share entertaining stories about … well, schools and children. This article from bookriot.com ties Philippa in to modern works like Harry Potter by way of many other authors, calling Ms. Brazil “the mother of the modern boarding school story.”
“Angela Brazil … did things differently. Before her, boarding school stories were basically morals, a little bit of death, a lot of religion, a fair bit of didacticism and populated by tiny adults who masqueraded as children. Angela Brazil changed all that in the early 1900s by writing for actual children. They squabbled, had friendships, were stupid, brave, and funny, and also spoke to one another like children.”
—LH Johnson, bookriot.com
Content notes
While little Philippa’s descriptions glowingly describe the South American region she loved so dearly, there are a handful of terms accepted then that we would replace today. These are terms like “my mulatto nurse” (where we’d today say something like “biracial/multiracial”), and descriptions like “negro” and “the coloured portion of the household.”
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