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Myers Literary Guide:
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The North-East
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ANGELA BRAZIL (1868 - 1947) Angela Brazil, who preferred her name to be pronounced 'Brazzle', is one of the 'big four' authors of girls' school stories; Elinor Brent-Dyer (q.v.) is another. Brazil sets one of her last novels, The Secret of the Border Castle (1943) at 'Langdon Castle' in Northumberland, where her heroine Vanessa is placed in boarding school away from wartime bombing. The location is a mixture of the fictional and real, with sensible walking times being given for trips to Hexham and the Roman forts on the Wall, though Kirklands Cross and Bewburn seem close to the border with Scotland. Vanessa is sensitive to the history of the region and day-dreams about the moss troopers of days gone by. The local doctor's wife, Mrs Roper, is concerned to raise the level of the girls' activities to something appropriate to war-time, while still being fun. This was something dear to the author's heart - practical morality, performing one's duty, doing good. One is reminded of the Girl Guides, though Brazil herself never belonged to any such organisation. The reader hears much about the Roman Wall, and the histories of Hexham and Corbridge are retailed. In addition, we learn of the coming of Christianity to Northumbria, and versions of local legends and ballads. All of this, though demonstrating assiduous research, rather slows down the pace of the narrative, which, when it deals with wartime reality and family bereavement, is far from convincing.
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