Background

Whitaker was born in Herne Bay, Kent and died in Hammersmith, London at the age of 84. She remained a spinster all her life often living with one or more of her sisters. All her works were published anonymously and the identity of the author of Tip Cat was not revealed until after her death. Her nineteen novels and several shorter stories were issued by multiple publishers in Britain

United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was the formal name of the United Kingdom during the period when what is now the Republic of Ireland formed a part of it....

, Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

, Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 and the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 from 1879-1915. Many of these editions were beautifully bound and illustrated. The novels were intended for children and young adults but were also widely read by adults, particularly women.

Evelyn Whitaker's writing style was praised as "a study in English for its conciseness, simplicity, and elegance" and Tip Cat was adopted as a text book for German students studying English.Her stories were described as "charming, pure, and wholesome," full of "humor and pathos."

For more than a decade after Evelyn Whitaker's death, her two most popular titles, Miss Toosey's Mission and Laddie, continued to be reissued as gift books. Such little novels with religious or moral themes were given as Sunday School

Sunday school

Sunday school is the generic name for many different types of religious education pursued on Sundays by various denominations.-England:The first Sunday school may have been opened in 1751 in St. Mary's Church, Nottingham. Another early start was made by Hannah Ball, a native of High Wycombe in...

 prizes, often as attendance awards. Such books where generally inexpensively made with inferior paper, ink, and illustrations but with attractive bindings. The ornate bindings made up half the production costs.

Major themes

Evelyn Whitaker's novels demonstrate intimate knowledge of life both in a vicarage and in a doctor's household and these homes are frequently the settings of her novels. Her religious view was traditional Anglican and that perspective informs her writing. In Miss Toosey's Mission, Tip Cat, and Lil she comments on Puseyites, Dissenters, and Methodism

Methodism

Methodism is a movement of Protestant Christianity represented by a number of denominations and organizations, claiming a total of approximately seventy million adherents worldwide. The movement traces its roots to John Wesley's evangelistic revival movement within Anglicanism. His younger brother...

.

The works of Evelyn Whitaker portray a fondness for the childhood nursery, dogs, and flowers. The author makes frequent use of the Victorian Language of flowers

Language of flowers

The language of flowers, sometimes called floriography, was a Victorian-era means of communication in which various flowers and floral arrangements were used to send coded messages, allowing individuals to express feelings which otherwise could not be spoken...

. She relates the blessings and burdens of children, rich and poor. She knows the streets of London and the rustic beauty of the countryside. She observes the plight of the urban poor, the rural worker displaced by industrialization, the mill worker, and the late 19th Century woman who might wish for a better education and more economic opportunity.

Having spent her whole life in the service of the sick Evelyn Whitaker was familiar with sick rooms, hospitals, and death and she often includes these settings and events in her novels.

Tip Cat (Scarlet fever

Scarlet fever

Scarlet fever is a disease caused by exotoxin released by Streptococcus pyogenes. Once a major cause of death, it is now effectively treated with antibiotics...

), Gay (Diphtheria

Diphtheria

Diphtheria is an upper respiratory tract illness caused by Corynebacterium diphtheriae, a facultative anaerobic, Gram-positive bacterium. It is characterized by sore throat, low fever, and an adherent membrane on the tonsils, pharynx, and/or nasal cavity...

), and Lassie (Typhoid) present descriptions of fever epidemics and public health and hygiene education. Gay provides details of home nursing care, quarantines, and a visit to the London Fever Hospital

London Fever Hospital

The London Fever Hospital was a voluntary hospital founded in 1802 in London. Originally established in Gray's Inn Road, it moved to Liverpool Road, Islington in 1848. In 1948, the hospital was amalgamated with the Royal Free Hospital.-References:...

 at Homerton. Pen and Lassie include the effects of Alcoholism

Alcoholism

Alcoholism is a broad term for problems with alcohol, and is generally used to mean compulsive and uncontrolled consumption of alcoholic beverages, usually to the detriment of the drinker's health, personal relationships, and social standing...

 on family life. Laddie and Lassie present a study in gender differences in the care of aging parents.

Although sometimes attributed to her, Evelyn Whitaker is not the author of Honor Bright, or the four leaved shamrock and Gilly Flower (1889). A number of books by Evelyn Whitaker have been digitized and are available on-line.

Books

• 1879 Laddie
• 1884 Tip-Cat
• prior to 1883Miss Toosey's Mission
• 1889 Lil
• 1885 Our Little Ann
• 1890 Zoë
• 1891 Pen
• 1891 Rose and Lavender
• 1892 Pris
• 1892 Dear by the author of Tip-Cat
• 1892 Baby John. Boston: Roberts Brothers
• 1894 Pomona
• 1895 My Honey London: A. D. Innes; Boston: Roberts Brothers
• 1895 Don
• 1898 Belle. W. & R. Chambers. Boston: Little, Brown
• 1898 Rob. . W. & R. Chambers
• 1900 Tom's Boy
• 1901 Lassie W. & R. Chambers
• 1902 Faithful Boston: Little, Brown
• 1903 Gay W. & R. Chambers
• For the Fourth Time of Asking

Illustrators

• Pomona, 8 illustrations, W. & R. Chambers. R. Barnes
• Zoë, W. & R. Chambers, 1890. R. Barnes
• Rose and Lavender, four illustrations, W&R Chambers, n.d. (c. 1910). Herbert A. Bone
• Laddie & Miss Toosey's Mission, frontis, Henry Altemus, n.d. Walter Cooper Bradley,
• Tip Cat, W. Smith, 1880. Randolph Caldecott. George Reiter Brill
• Tip Cat, (copper engraving)W. Smith,1880. J.D. Cooper
• My Honey, frontis, Ward Lock,1910. Sidney Cowell
• Laddie (the Editha Series,) H. M. Caldwell, 1905. Eliot Keen
• Don, frontis & 8 illus, W&R Chambers, 1895. J Finnemore
• Belle, 6 illus,W&R Chambers. G. Nicolet
• Laddie, frontis + 3 others plates B&W, E. P. Dutton, 1891. H. Winthrop Pierce
• Tom's Boy, 8 illustrations, W&R Chambers,1900. Percy Tarrant (Margaret Tarrant's brother: Margaret illustrator of Ward & Lock's Fairy Tales, 48 plates, 1919 but may be a reissue)
• Gay,6 illus., W&R Chambers Percy Tarrant (Margaret Tarrant's brother: Margaret illustrator of Ward & Lock's Fairy Tales, 48 plates, 1919 but may be a reissue)
• Gay: a story, Little, Brown, 1903 Percy Tarrant (Margaret Tarrant's brother: Margaret illustrator of Ward & Lock's Fairy Tales, 48 plates, 1919 but may be a reissue)
• Zoë, Henry Altemus, 1899. W H Listern
• Lassie, frontis, W&R Chambers, n.d. Jessie Wilson. W. Rainey
• Lassie, Little Brown, 1903. Jessie Wilson. W. Rainey
• Baby John, Zoë, For the Fourth Time of Asking, Little Brown, 1903. J. Harley
• Rob, Ward & Lock. J. Williamson