Elsie's Womanhood (The Original Elsie Dinsmore Collection) Paperback – October 1, 2009

I love these Elsie books both for their good values and charm. Yes, they are a bit out dated but still very entertaining to read. It's a great pleasure to watch Elsie grow from child to mother in these books and to see her faith grow as well. I highly recommend them.

I love this series and enjoy reading it, so while I sew or crochet I can listen❤️

A sweet love story--I was so pleased with her choice of husband. There's much here to show that era in the American South, as well as the continuing illustration of loving family relationships and positive character traits such as generosity and a loving--though ethically strong--response to ugly attitudes in others. In subsequent books we find some happy outcomes of these seemingly impossible relationships.

We live in a time when the majority of so called Christian fiction is truly a waste of any Christians time. Most modern fiction (though not all) that claims the name of Christ does dishonor to His holy character. They throw His name in a few times and voilà it's supposed to be Christian. Not so with Elsie series. The characters though imperfect point is to Christ and God's word is a regular conversation. Five stars for sure!

I had forgotten how much emphasis was placed on filial love and God. I am not particularly religious, and yet I found these books innocent and charming then, and have enjoyed rereading them (despite all of the typing errors in these editions.

My 9yo daughter is hooked. A great piece of historical fiction into protestant life in the 1800

Familial love vs national honor and loss of the places once cherished and loved.. Hope stolen and then restored.. Amazing

Martha Finley again wrote a wonderful story that was hard to put down. I recommend that others read it delightful

This is the "Civil War" part of the history of Elsie and family. The book begins with Elsie engaged to her old friend from childhood, Edward Travilla. However it is when Elsie journeys to Louisiana with her father that a really important section of the book starts. For Elsie owns a plantation there, Viamede, that she has not seen since she was a small child. And she owns slaves there. It is easy for us in the twenty-first century to condemn Elsie for this - but Elsie was a person of her time, caught up in the culture of her time. We see Elsie's own feelings when her black "mammy" (nursemaid) finds her long-lost husband on the journey - and Elsie buys him so that they can be together. Moreover, Elsie deliberately arrives earlier than expected just in case her slaves are being badly treated - and discovers a slave being whipped, even though orders had been sent much earlier that the slaves there were to be treated kindly! Elsie orders the whipping to stop and the whipping post to be chopped up for firewood! And conditions rapidly improve for the slaves at Viamede. . . . Subsequently, Elsie marries her Edward and they return to Viamede for the honeymoon - where she and her new husband come under attack by Tom Jackson, the villainous gambler who had wanted to marry Elsie for her money, who had fooled Elsie - until she had finally realised the truth about him! He tries to shoot them - but fails, and is injured himself. Later in the book we see him come to a terrible end. . . . Later on in the book Elsie and her immediate family journey to Naples, unaware then that it will be five years before they can return, for Civil War breaks out in the U.S.A.Martha Finley has evidently gone to much trouble to write an impartial account of the conflict - not so many years after the conflict. She has read what had so far been written about the War; and got first-hand accounts from both sides, and she attempts to be fair to both sides We read that Elsie, her husband, and her father, all support the Union ("northern") side, and are dismayed when other relations support the Confederates, and write letters rejoicing over the fall of Fort Sumter and other events - events that horrify Elsie. We are taken to see some of Elsie's family joining the conflict and falling in battle - we are presented with the horrors of the War, including an escape from a terrible Prisoner of War camp; we see the devastation in the final stages of the War, when we find that Roselands was burnt down. Elsie and family return to find the family devastated - but they are prepared to move forward into a new future. And meanwhile Elsie has given birth to four children of her own during the course of the book.This is a well written, often exciting book, that not only takes the story of Elsie forward but describes life in America during that terrible Civil War.