Evelyn Ward Everett-Green (17 November 1856 in London – 23 April 1932 in Funchal) was an English novelist who started with improving, pious stories for children, moved on to historical fiction for older girls, and then turned to adult romantic fiction. She wrote about 350 books, more than 200 of them under her own name, and others using the pseudonyms H. F. E., Cecil Adair, E. Ward and Evelyn Dare.
Early life and work
Evelyn was born at 7 Upper Gower Street, London. Her mother was a historian, Mary Anne Everett Green (née Wood), and her father, George Pycock Green, a portrait and landscape painter. The family were Methodists. She was the second of the family's three surviving daughters and had an older brother. She was baptised at Great Queen Street Wesleyan Methodist Chapel on 22 February 1857 as Eveline, but changed her name to Evelyn in later life. Like the rest of her family, she added Everett to her surname in honour of George Green's friend the Wesleyan historian James Everett.
From earliest childhood, Evelyn invented stories to tell her sisters. She was educated at home until the age of 12, then at Gower Street Preparatory School, where she wrote a historical tale about Lady Jane Grey. Next came a year at Bedford College, London on a Reid scholarship (1872–1873), during which she wrote Tom's Tempest Victory, her first novel. She continued to write while studying at the London Academy of Music. She also worked as a nurse in a London hospital for two years. Her brother's death in 1876 ended plans to go to India with him. She occupied herself with good works, including Sunday School teaching and nursing, and later hospital nursing.
Writing career
In 1880 Tom Tempest's Victory became her first published work, under the pseudonym H. F. E. Though it was soon followed by other works, she found writing at home difficult and town winters unhealthy for her. In 1881 she was still living in Gower Street with her family, but in 1883 she moved outside London with Catherine Mainwaring Sladen. In the 1890s and early 1900s they had homes in Albury, Surrey. At the time of the 1891 England Census, however, she and Catherine were currently visiting her family at Gower Street.
While in Albury, Everett-Green wrote numerous historical novels and somewhat fewer moral tales for the Religious Tract Society. Her novel about Joan of Arc entitled Called of Her Country (1903), later republished as A Heroine of France, presents Joan as a feminine "Angelic Maid" in white armour, whose inspiring adventures were undertaken in a dutiful spirit. Many of her works have been dismissed by critics as apologies for an oppressive order. The girls' historical romance genre is viewed by such critics as a validation of "traditional", restrictive, domestic-oriented versions of femininity by showing they had long-established historical precedents.
Much of Everett-Green's fiction and non-fiction was meant for girls, but she also wrote boys' adventure stories such as A Gordon Highlander (1901). Many of her books followed values and themes learnt during her Methodist upbringing. These are clearest in her books targeting children in general. She soon turned to novels for slightly older girls, the genre she is best remembered for. They generally followed development in a household from childhood to adulthood. Careers for women were mentioned without disapproval, but the endings invariably featured marriage for the female heroines. Contemporary critics, such as one from the Chicago Daily Tribune, said the works were written with "obvious good intention", but the "day of the weepy, fainting, blue-eyed... heroine has vanished." Between 1890 and 1909 she wrote about 50 historical tales before moving to Madeira.
Thereafter she wrote romantic novels for adults, often under the pseudonym Cecil Adair. According to a modern critic, "Family sagas or romances with a historical adventure setting were her speciality." Contemporary readers enjoyed these for their chaste sensationalism and they had considerable success. She occasionally collaborated with fellow authors Louisa Bedford and Emma and Beatrice Marshall.
Evelyn's works were some of the most popular of her generation. She was one of the bestselling authors with her publisher, Stanley Paul. However, while popular enough to bring in adequate income, they lack real distinction and are now generally read for the light they shed on social backgrounds.
