A series may contain as few as three volumes or as many as a hundred or more. Although most are linked by continuing characters, a series may also be unified by genre (such as mystery or romance), setting, or theme, and the books are usually packaged in a uniform size and design. Some series are mass-produced and formulaic, such as the Nancy Drew mysteries; others are more complex and literary, such as the Anne of Green Gables series. Some feature characters who rarely age or change; others follow the protagonist(s) from youth to maturity, often ending when the main character reaches such a rite of passage to adulthood as graduation, marriage, or a first job. Although their subject matter, settings, tones, literary quality, and ideologies vary widely, all girls' series deal in some way with issues of gender definition, illustrating acceptable and unacceptable behavior for girls in a given time and culture.
Nineteenth-Century Series Books
Series fiction has been most popular in the United States, where the first continuing-character series for girls began in 1841 with Jacob Abbott's Cousin Lucy stories. Typical of many early- and mid-nineteenth-century series, the Lucy books offered instruction in middle-class mores and Protestant moral virtues; they were also the first example of what became a common form of girls' series-the “tot” story, which focuses on a very young child whose mild adventures are tailored to audiences of the same age. The six Cousin Lucy titles established a pattern of location that was often repeated in girls' series: early volumes, such as Cousin Lucy at Study, show the protagonist(s) in such domestic situations as home and school, whereas later volumes, such as Cousin Lucy Among the Mountains, reflect more public settings and experiences. Although a few girls' series began in the 1850s, it was the 1860s and 1870s that fully established the popularity of the form. More than fifty new series, many linked by theme and published by religious presses, began during these decades. Among the most widely read authors of this period was Rebecca Clarke, who wrote as “Sophie May.” Her first and most successful series, Little Prudy, began in 1863. Intended for elementary-age readers, the episodic stories featured Prudy Parlin, age 3 at the start of the series. Sophie May used characters from the Parlin family to create other successful series, including Dottie Dimple (1868-1869) and Little Prudy's Children (1894-1901). While May's books contained the moral and other lessons typical of juvenile fiction of the time, her characters were often more lively and realistic than those featured in other didactic literature. Series for older girls also gained popularity as the nineteenth century advanced. Two that remained in print into the twentieth century were Elizabeth Stuart Phelps's Gypsy Breynton series (1867-1868) and the What Katy Did books (1872-1891) by “Susan Coolidge” (pseudonym of Sarah Chauncey Woolsey). The main characters, Jemima “Gypsy” Breynton and Katy Carr, illustrate some of the gender issues that inform many girls' series. Contrary to modern stereotypes of Victorian-era heroines, neither Gypsy nor Katy is passive or demure. Instead, each represents a common nineteenth-century fictional type: the energetic girl who actively tests out gender codes. In both cases, the characters are ultimately socialized into the prevailing gender roles of the white middle class; that is, they come to accept the public and domestic restraints imposed on “good” girls. Yet importantly, both series insist that part of what it means to be properly “womanly” is to be unafraid and independent, albeit in carefully circumscribed, nonmasculine ways.
Throughout the nineteenth century, Protestant Christianity remained an important thematic influence in most girls' series. One of the longest-lived and best-selling nineteenth-century series was overtly evangelical. Martha Finley's Elsie books (1868-1905) trace the life of Elsie Dinsmore, a saintly, submissive Southern heiress whose faith sustains her during her lonely, half-orphaned childhood on a rich antebellum plantation, through her girlhood, marriage, and widowhood, and into a happy old age as a much loved great-grandmother. Although often criticized for their melodrama, racism,
and parochialism, the Elsie books nonetheless demonstrate the emotional power of sentimental fiction.
Twentieth-Century Series Books
By the end of the nineteenth century, explicit religion and moral didacticism were on the wane in girls' series fiction-at the same time that the number of series waxed dramatically. In the 1890s, twenty new girls' series debuted in the United States; between 1900 and 1920, more than 150 new series appeared. The range of periods, themes, and settings was vast. There were historical series, travel series, tot series, school and college series, adventure series, war service series; series about Girl Scouts and Camp Fire Girls; and series set in the West, the South, and New England.
