
An enthralling novel of family secrets and fated love LAVINIA BRANDON was a strikingly beautiful widow who privately adored attracting men of all ages while being perfectly pleased to avoid any trips to the altar. She was comfortably wealthy, com...
Jack Middleton likes to imagine himself a country squire. At weekends he retires to Laverings Estate with his wife, Catherine. He may be pompous, and they may seem ill-matched, but the couple are devoted to each other.When Jack's widowed sister, Lili...
'You read her, laughing, and want to do your best to protect her characters from any reality but their own' New York TimesIt is summer 1939 and the social event of the year is about to take place: Rose Birkett, a flighty beauty with a penchant for br...
As the war continues it brings its own set of trials to the the village of Northbridge. Eight officers of the Barsetshire Regiment have been billeted at the rectory, and Mrs Villars, the Rector's wife, is finding the attentions of Lieutenant Holden (...
'You read her, laughing, and want to do your best to protect her characters from any reality but their own' New York TimesMr Marling, of Marling Hall, has begun to accept - albeit reluctantly - that he will probably never be able to pass his wonderfu...
Pretty, impecunious Mary Preston, newly arrived as a guest of her Aunt Agnes at the magnificent wooded estate of Rushwater, falls head over heels for handsome playboy David Leslie. Meanwhile, Agnes and her mother, the eccentric matriarch Lady Emily, ...
Barsetshire in the latter years of the Second World War is a peaceful and gossipy place, but there has been one lively change. A girls' school, evacuated from London, has taken over Harefield Park. Miss Sparling seems to be the perfect headmistress: ...
The carefully observed separation of the old and the new social strata is upset when representatives of each come together in the sphere of Miss Bunting- the governess who has molded most of the country's upper class. Under Miss Bunting's tutelage, A...
Even drama settles into circumstance, as the denizens of Barsetshire have learned through the private and public worries the Second World War has delivered to the home front. When peace breaks out, it surprises and unsettles familiar wartime routines...
Amid food shortages and grumbling, Barsetshire is unsettled by the arrival of a pretty war widow in this "delicately humorous [and] entertaining" novel (The New York Times). World War II may be over, but its effects linger in the English countrysi...
'You read her, laughing, and want to do your best to protect her characters from any reality but their own' New York TimesIt's the summer of 1947, and peacetime has brought new challenges to Barsetshire. Beliers Priory, once a military hospital durin...
Matches are being made among the cream of postwar English society in this novel of "warmth, whimsy, quirks, and vinegar with a dash of vitriol"(The New York Times). The England of old may be fading away (it's so hard to find good help these days!)...
'Charming, very funny indeed. Angela Thirkell is perhaps the most Pym-like of any twentieth-century author, after Pym herself' - Alexander McCall SmithEdgewood Rectory may be set in an ancient landscape, but the Grantly family are very much of their ...
'You read her, laughing, and want to do your best to protect her characters from any reality but their own' New York TimesThe county of Barsetshire is aflutter with preparations. With the wedding of Lucy Marling and Sam Adams fast approaching, and Lu...
"Her writing celebrates the solid parochial English virtues of stiff-upper-lippery, good-sportingness,[and] dislike of fuss. . . . Light, witty, easygoing books." -- The New Yorker As 1951 draws to a close, Christmas approaches --...
'Charming, very funny indeed' ALEXANDER McCALL SMITH Change is in the air in Barsetshire. The country may have a new queen, but Greshambury has a new rector, Canon Fewling, and a returned prodigal daughter: the beautiful, frivolous Rose Fairweather. ...
As Elizabeth II's coronation draws near, the gentry of Barsetshire engage in preparations, committee meetings, and "their perennially amusing antics" (The New York Times). A new queen is about to be crowned, and the prominent families of Barsetshi...
The missing lord of the manor looms large in this quirky novel by an author who offers "a fresh, original, witty interpretation of England's social history" (The New York Times). Lady Graham is anticipating the long-awaited appearance of Sir Rober...