Elsie At The World S Fair

The Dinsmores and other family and friends attend the 1893 World's Fair Exposition in Chicago.

Reproduction of the original: Elsie at the World's Fair by Martha Finley

Martha Finley (April 26, 1828 - January 30, 1909) was a teacher and author of numerous works, the most well known being the 28 volume Elsie Dinsmore series which was published over a span of 38 years. The daughter of Presbyterian minister Dr. James Brown Finley and his wife and cousin Maria Theresa Brown Finley, she was born on April 26, 1828, in Chillicothe, Ohio. Finley wrote many of her books under the pseudonym Martha Farquharson. She died in 1909 in Elkton, Maryland, where she moved in 1876.Elsie does not live with her parents but with her paternal grandfather, his second wife (Elsie's step-grandmother), and their six children: Adelaide, Lora, Louise, Arthur, Walter, and Enna (Enna was the youngest). Elsie's mother died soon after giving birth to her, leaving her in the care of her grandfather. Before her father comes back she becomes good friends with Rose Allison, with whom she studies the Bible. Her father was in Europe until she was almost eight years old as the first book begins. The first Elsie books deal with a constant moral conflict between Christian principles and familial loyalty. Deeper still is the warring between Christ centered principles and the "worldly" inclinations of both her Father and his family. Elsie's father is a strict disciplinarian who dictates inflexible rules by which his daughter must live. Any infraction is severely and often unjustly punished. In her father's absence Elsie has become a Christian and abides by what she has been taught is Biblical law, especially the Ten Commandments (also known as the Decalogue)- as taught to her by her dead Mother's housekeeper and then her own Nanny,

The Elsie Dinsmore Novels, Martha Finley, in our opinion is the author of the best Series of novels that we have seen in our forty-three years of reviewing. Written by Martha Finley, an unmarried teacher of the last century, these novels proved to be a means of conveying her deep love for Christ Jesus. She loved her Lord, she loved His Word, and this love was passed on to His sheep through the writing of by far the best and most Biblical novels you will ever read or see. Altogether there are 28 of these novels, all built around Elsie Dinsmore, her immediate family, her extended family, and her neighbors.

Martha Finley (1828-1909) who sometimes wrote under the pseudonym Martha Farquharson, was the author of Black Steve (1865), Elsie Dinsmore (1867), Casella (1869), Holidays at Roselands (1873), Elsie's Girlhood (1873), Elsie's Womanhood (1875), Elsie's Motherhood (1876), Elsie's Children (1877), Grandmother Elsie (1882), Elsie's New Relations (]1883), Elsie at Nantucket (1884), The Two Elsies (1885), Elsie at Home (1887), Elsie's Kith and Kin (1889), Christmas with Grandma Elsie (1889), Elsie and the Raymonds (1890), Elsie's Vacation and After Events (1891), Elsie at Viamede (1892), Elsie at Ion (1893), and Elsie at the World's Fair (1894).