I'm the kind of person who, every once in a while, will go look at the Austen, Bronte, and Gaskell shelves at the bookstore, fruitlessly hoping that an undiscovered novel by one of them will have been secretly published to no fanfare and be sitting there waiting for me. Until that day comes, the closest thing I've found in terms of pure reading enjoyment has been The Priory by Dorothy Whipple.
Another Persephone book, The Priory is set in the pre-WWII English countryside and centers around an aristocratic family of dwindling means living in a run down priory. In an Upstairs, Downstairs fashion, the story follows the doings of both the family and the servants of the house. Each and every character entertains, from the deadbeat master of the house who squanders all of his money on cricket matches to the scheming housemaid who tricks a man into marrying her. The story completely hooked me, and was made even better by the frequent feeling that the author was giving the reader a satirical wink.
(Image via here)
Another Persephone book, The Priory is set in the pre-WWII English countryside and centers around an aristocratic family of dwindling means living in a run down priory. In an Upstairs, Downstairs fashion, the story follows the doings of both the family and the servants of the house. Each and every character entertains, from the deadbeat master of the house who squanders all of his money on cricket matches to the scheming housemaid who tricks a man into marrying her. The story completely hooked me, and was made even better by the frequent feeling that the author was giving the reader a satirical wink.
(Image via here)
This sounds fantastic. I love a good book recommendation, and I'll have to check this out. Thank you!
ReplyDeleteI'm new to your blog, but I'm hooked. I'll have to go through your archives for book recommendations, which I'm also going to do on my blog. Is your bookshelf organized by genre as well as alphabetized? =)
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