Was somewhat interested in the research parts.

Favourite book when i was younger. Still good, although wonder why i liked it so much when read now (mostly cause I'm use to reading harder books and this one is clearly written for 10 to 12 age range). Love all the trouble maria gets in and the mystery she solves.

Very enjoyable tale of young orphaned Maria, who runs away from her boarding school and makes her way to her uncle who is the Warden of the fictitious Canterbury College in Oxford. He decides to let her stay and she takes up lessons with the three Smith boys next door. She wants to impress her uncle so after a trip to the nearby Jerusalem House and seeing a 16th century drawing of an unknown boy , she embarks on research into who the subject was. Written in the 1950s and set in the 1870s, Avery is a new author to me, which was surprising as she was of ‘my’ era when I was devouring any book I could get my hands on.

Brief slice of life of Victorian England middle class through the eyes of an atypical 10 year old girl.

I've loved this book since I was in school( a long time ago !)
It has adventure, humour, sadness and mystery all in one .
It always makes me happy returning to the story of Maria, Thomas ,Joshua and James.
I've still got the copy I bought when I was 12, highly recommend this children's story.

A favourite author back in the day. I was never away from Stretford Library. Read as many of hers as I could get hold of. All these years and I still have fond memories of Mr Copplestone!

Maria Escapes [aka The Warden's Niece] is a children's novel written by Gillian Avery (1957) and illustrated by Scott Snow (1992). In 1875 England, self-doubting orphan Maria runs away from boarding school and throws herself on the mercy of her elderly uncle and guardian, a college warden at Oxford. She blurts out that she wishes she could be a professor, so he arranges for Maria to join the tutoring lessons of his neighbors' three sons. That's the first 25 pages or so.

The rest of the book is the amusing interactions of the four kids and their unconventional tutor Mr. Copplestone. Maria is caught between the three boisterous brothers and the warden's severe housekeeper, but she rises to the occasion and manages pretty well. Maria also becomes interested in unraveling a mystery from the 1600s, for which she figures out how to navigate the Bodleian Library despite its being off-limits to women and children. As in the classic children's novel From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, investigating the historical mystery helps move the plot along.

Maria Escapes is one of many books that I found out about thanks to 1001 Children's Books You Must Read Before You Grow Up.

Just my kind of book. Comforting and full of olde world charm!

Maria's time at a Victorian all-girl's boarding school is fraught with painful memories and incidents. When her elderly aunt dies, she is sent there will little support from her extended family and finds herself bullied and ridiculed by students and staff alike. As a last grasp of hope she runs away to Oxford in the hope of some support from her uncle, the warden of Canterbury College (another fictitious creation).
There, she finds that both her uncle and his colleague are sympathetic and forward thinking in their approach to mixed-sex education. They think Maria would benefit from being taught at Canterbury alongside three siblings brothers whose rather is a resident Professor. With the current tutor on leave, Maria and the boys are taught by the utterly maverick, Mr. Copplestone, who is both chaotic yet utterly devout in supporting Maria's desire to research.
Although there may be many obstacles in her path, Maria's goal to become a professor of Greek and unravel a local mystery in a stately home is supported by a host of boys and academic men and with her own growing self-determination, Maria's story draws to a satisfying conclusion.
This is the first Avery I have read and as a story of highlighting progressive movements in ensuring education and access to education for women it's right up there.

Hating her Victorian boarding school, ten-year-old Maria decides to run away. The train takes her to Oxford, where she finds her uncle, the Warden of Canterbury College. He takes her in and arranges for her to have lessons with the three young sons of a neighbour. They and their eccentric temporary tutor provide Maria with a summer of wild escapades and a historical mystery.

I wish I had read this as a child. I'm sure I would have loved it. It's still a good read now. Maria is convincingly shy for someone who has been brought up as she was, but determined enough to be interesting. The Smith boys are fun, and Copplestone the tutor is wonderful.

One of the first stories I've read where the children are treated as though they were born persons with a mind that is capable of thinking and growing.
The main character, Maria is captivated by some mysterious engravings and portraits found on the property of a Lord's manor she visits with her tutor and neighboring boys. Their play and their studies intertwine to lead them into adventures and experiences that both furthers Maria's understanding of the Lord's family history and makes her hesitant to bring shame to her Uncle's house.
The story brings both humor and interest as the children interact with each other and the expectations of grown-ups. I think Maria is a delightful and intelligent character for girls to emulate.
Gillian Avery wrote other stories for children which I hope to read and also wrote several books about children's literature which I have waiting for me on my shelf. And I can't help but wonder if Maria as a character shares much of her curious and intelligent personality from her creator.

Yes indeed, I do really wish that Gillian Avery's 1957 school/university themed novel The Warden's Niece (titled as Maria Escapes for the US market, and why the title needed to be changed, I really do not know) was a bit more universally known and appreciated, as it is a story that is both entertainingly delightful and thought-provoking (especially with regard to girls' academic ambitions). Set in England (in the latter part of the 19th century), the main protagonist, Maria, is a bit shy and timid but dreams the at that time still majorly impossible dream (to become a professor at Oxford University, and impossible, because while in the 1870s, women could attend lectures at Oxford, they would not be able to actually become full members until 1920). However and unfortunately, the all female boarding school Maria is attending is not only repressively conservative but also rather woefully unacademic with the so-called teachers really not being at all interested in imparting knowledge to their students, but moulding them into model citizens, good little housewives, and draconically punishing even minor infractions against petty rules (such as sloppy penmanship or ink spots on one's clothing or books). And after one particularly horrible lesson, Maria (who simply cannot and does not want to adjust to these petty dictates of her school any longer) runs away to Oxford University, where her uncle is warden at the fictitious Canterbury College.

Maria's uncle, the Warden, is depicted and presented by Gillian Avery as someone who on the one hand is very much in agreement with and sympathetic to his niece's academic aspirations (and to universal education for both males and females in fact), but who is on the other hand also absolutely dismissive of girls' schools and academies in general (and not because the Warden does not believe that girls and women should be educated, but because he astutely and with more than just cause and reason has realised that most schools that cater specifically to girls are simply and utterly incompetently unsuitable for serious academics, for actual intellectual pursuits, as is pretty sadly and horribly demonstrated by the girls-only boarding school from which Maria has escaped). And thus, after Maria turns up at Canterbury College, her uncle not only decides that Maria should remain with him, but that she should (gasp) take her lessons with the three sons of Profesor Smith (cocky James, anxious Joshua, and Thomas, who acts a bit superior and lofty and will soon be leaving to attend a prestigious rugby school). And their (Maria's, James', Joshua's and Thomas') tutor, Mr. Copplestone, although sympathetically depicted and portrayed by the author, also proves to be rather madcap and prone to misadventure (with tripping and falling into a henhouse being just one of his many hilarious escapades).

Now although The Warden's Niece always strives to depict Maria as a serious and inherently academically inclined student with legitimate and very particular college/university based ambitions (and as already alluded to previously, with a professorship at Oxford being Maria's ultimate dream), she is also not a so-called Blue Stocking, and Mr. Copplestone as a character, as well as the sometimes rather reckless and fiasco prone exploits of the Brothers Smith do provide a very much entertaining backdrop and prevent The Warden's Niece from turning into simply a lesson on Maria's pursuit of academics and research (and while Maria's own escapades when she endeavours through original research to discover the identity of an unnamed boy in a historical portrait are indeed perhaps sometimes a bit over-the-top, a trifle too gratuitously adventuresome and perhaps even a bit artificially exciting, they also do remain for the most part interesting, entertaining and readable, with Maria not only discovering the name of the portrait boy, but the Warden offering praise for his niece's university level research, her perseverance, and even stating that Maria should write a reasearch paper to deliver to the Kentish Historical Society on her finds, on her research, her conclusions).

And while Gillian Avery does NOT (of course, and actually thankfully, as that would be majorly anachronistic for a novel set in 1870s England) conclude The Warden's Niece with Maria either attending Oxford or being offered a fellowship, the plot, the storyline presents an entertaining, lively and fun reading experience, an adventuresome and delightful romp that also and for and to me very much importantly is an avowal, a declaration of the universal rights of girls and women to a suitable and above all an academic education, that ALL girls, that ALL women should have the opportunity to practice, to pursue academics, intellectual study and research based educational pursuits.