I meant to finish this list ages ago, but I kept finding
new things to add! So by now you’ve probably seen the shocking season three
finale and heard that a fourth season is in the works. What to do until then?
Try reading one of the many entertaining novels or enlightening non-fiction
titles listed here. If you prefer something to watch, that list is coming soon!
Fiction
The American Heiress by Daisy Goodwin
This novel from the American perspective could be Lady
Grantham's back story. The American Heiress
remolds the true life of wealthy debutante Consuelo Vanderbilt into the fictional
adventures of Cora Cash, the beautiful, vivacious reigning heiress of her time.
Unfortunately, she doesn't have the proper pedigree to marry into New York
society, so she heads to England instead. Cora's many American dollars and
fresh American spirit capture the attention of one of England's most
eligible—and impoverished—titled bachelors.
Ashenden by Elizabeth Wilhide
This saga of the upstairs and downstairs residents of an
English country house spans more than two centuries and includes the stories of
its original architect, soldiers billeted in the house during World War I, and
a young couple who restores the house in the 1950s. Like Downton Abbey, Ashenden
Park is based on an actual estate in Berkshire, England. This beautifully written
debut novel takes the reader on a pilgrimage through the ups and downs of human
nature, all within the walls of one historic English mansion.
Atonement by Ian McEwan
In 1935 England, 13-year-old Briony Tallis witnesses an
event involving her sister Cecilia and her childhood friend Robbie Turner, and
she becomes the victim of her own imagination, accusing Robbie of a heinous
crime. As the Tallis family is wealthy and Robbie is the cleaning lady’s son,
class distinction plays a significant role in the proceedings. For those
interested in the facts of war, the descriptions of Robbie’s experiences in
France during WWII and the Tallis girls nursing soldiers in London are grimly
realistic. Atonement was made into an
Academy Award-nominated film in 2007.
Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks
Readers who are entranced by the sweeping Anglo sagas of Masterpiece
Theatre will devour the historical drama of Birdsong. The book's
hero, a 20-year-old Englishman named Stephen Wraysford, finds his true love on
a trip to Amiens in 1910. Later, he is haunted by this doomed affair and
carries it with him into the trenches of World War I. Birdsong derives
most of its power from its descriptions of mud and blood, and Wraysford's
attempt to retain a scrap of humanity while surrounded by it. The BBC
dramatized this novel in a two-part mini-series.
A Bitter Truth by Charles Todd
Bess finds herself back in London, on leave from her
nursing duties on the World War I battlefields of France. During a memorial for
a friend's brother-in-law, Bess becomes embroiled in the family's disagreements
and secrets. When one of the houseguests, a wounded soldier, is found murdered,
the police cast their suspicion on everyone—including Bess herself. She must
search from Sussex all the way to war-torn France to discover the bitter truth
about a soldier's death not on the battlefield but on the home front. Few
writers surpass Todd in depicting the insanity of war.
Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
A prolific satirist, Waugh chronicled the lives of the
British upper classes. Here, he examines the wealthy Flyte family through the
eyes of Sebastian Flyte's less wealthy school friend Charles Ryder, who is
eventually tempted into an extramarital affair with Sebastian's sister, Lady
Julia. The novel is a story of faith and disillusionment in a glamorous
upper-class world, a sweeping family saga spanning two world wars and detailing
loves, losses, and friendships Brideshead is the Flyte’s stately home.
The Buccaneers by Edith Wharton
Just about anything by Wharton will make the wait for Season
4 go by just a bit faster! Wharton made a career from careful observations of
the upper class and how money, position, and marriage can shape lives, not
necessarily for the better. The
Buccaneers is another novel with hints of Lady Grantham’s back story. It follows the fortunes of the five beautiful
nouveau riche St. George girls, who
sail to England in the 1870s and marry into the aristocracy after being denied
a place in New York Society. For more Wharton, try The House of Mirth.
The Children’s Book by A.S. Byatt
When children’s book author Olive Wellwood’s son
discovers a runaway named Philip in the basement of a museum, she takes him
into the storybook world of her family. But the joyful bacchanals Olive hosts
at her country house—and the private books she writes for each of her
children—conceal more treachery and darkness than Philip has ever imagined. The
Wellwoods’ personal struggles and hidden desires unravel against a backdrop of
the shores of England to Paris, Munich, and the trenches of the Somme, as the
Edwardian period dissolves into World War I and Europe’s golden era comes to an
end.
The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von
Arnim
You may remember a scene early in season two of Downton in which Molesley (valet to
Mathew) suggests to Anna that they read and discuss Elizabeth and Her German Garden. Although Anna declined the offer,
this was a popular novel in that time. Its author would later write the best
seller The Enchanted April, in which
four women find each other—and the Italian castle of their dreams—through a
classified ad in a London newspaper. The ladies expect a pleasant holiday, but
they don’t anticipate that the month they spend in Portofino will reintroduce
them to their true natures and reacquaint them with joy. Now, if the same
transformation can be worked on their husbands and lovers, the enchantment will
be complete.
Fall of Giants by Ken Follett
Follett traces the fates of five interrelated families—American,
German, Russian, English, and Welsh—from different walks of life as they move
through the dramas of the First World War, the Russian Revolution, and the
struggle for women's suffrage. Set during the upheaval of WWI and the years
following, this compelling and character-driven novel is the first in a planned
trilogy that will follow five families from different walks of life, from the
mines of Wales to the Russian revolution.
Falling Angels by Tracy Chevalier
If Edwardian England is the place you want to be, try this
book of manners and social divisions. Chevalier
captures not only the progressive spirit of post-Victorian England but also its
conventions, such as the preoccupation with death and the impossibly mature
voices of young children. Maude and Lavinia meet in a graveyard the day after
Queen Victoria’s death and the two girls become fast friends, despite their
different social classes. The girls’ friendship endures, and they continue to
meet in the graveyard, keeping company with Simon, the son of a gravedigger.
Flirting with Destiny by Sarah Hylton
In 1914, four privileged young women leave school and
prepare to embark on their new adult lives, but as war breaks out, they must
adjust to a different world and face the difficult years ahead. None of the girls
has had any training that is helpful to the war effort, so each must learn to
cope with the new world in her own fashion. One becomes a nurse but is resented
for her station in life. Two struggle to adapt when the men they were to marry
go to war. The last develops a reputation for being fast. How each vulnerable
young woman learns to deal with the changes war brings reveals her true
character for better or worse.
Habits of the House by Fay Weldon
The award-winning writer for Upstairs Downstairs borrows heavily from both Downton Abbey and Upstairs
Downstairs in the first in her trilogy about Edwardian Britain. The series
traces the shared lives of masters and servants at the turn of the 20th
century, following the family life of Cabinet hopeful Lord Robert, who hopes to
alleviate financial woes by marrying his son to a disgraced Chicago heiress.
Weldon begins her novel over 10 years earlier than the two TV series, but the
dramatic elements are the same: a wealthy family and its servants reacting to
social, economic, and political changes.
The House at Riverton by Kate Morton
I think I remember reading that this novel is based on
the same journals that Downton Abbey
and Upstairs Downstairs were based on,
but now I can’t find that information again! In any case, many Downton Abbey devotees love the
drama between and within the classes and are likely to enjoy this lively story
of a proper English housemaid and her unusual relationship with the daughters
of the family. All three women witness the death of a noted poet one glittering
summer evening at a house party in 1924. Almost 70 years later, Grace, the
former housemaid, tells the truth about the incident.
The House of Eliott by Jean Marsh
Based on the BBC series (1991-1994) she coauthored (as she
did the Emmy-winning Upstairs Downstairs),
Marsh's first novel is an exuberant, glittering romp through London in the early
1920s. Following the death of their apparently affluent physician father,
Evangeline and Beatrice Eliott discover they have inherited nothing but the
gloomy Victorian Gothic house they inhabit. They decide to open a dressmaking
shop because they have too little money to survive without a steady income.
I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
Looking to live the English country life? This lovely
coming-of-age story illustrates the blurring of class lines as the Edwardian
upper class faded away. The narrator, 17-year-old Cassandra Mortmain, describes
her family, all stuck in a castle that's falling down, with minimal food and no
amenities. Imagine their excitement when a family of wealthy Americans (with
two sons of marriageable age) moves into the estate next door. Set in the
1930s, I Capture the Castle was
originally published in 1948 (and is by the author of The 101 Dalmatians, if you’re curious).
The Last Summer by Judith Kinghorn
In July of 1914, innocent, lovely Clarissa Granville
lives with her parents and three brothers in the idyllic isolation of Deyning
Park, a grand English country house, where she whiles away her days enjoying
house parties, country walks and tennis matches. Clarissa is drawn to Tom
Cuthbert, the housekeeper's son. Though her parents disapprove of the
upstairs-downstairs friendship, a deep and tender romance still blooms. Soon the
winds of war come to Deyning and Tom prepares to join the front lines. Neither
he nor Clarissa can imagine how their love will be tested or how they will treasure
the memory of this last, perfect summer.
The Light Years by Jane Elizabeth Howard
A rich domestic drama arises from the pages of Howard's
captivating novel, set in England in 1937 and 1938. The Cazalets are an
upper-crust London family—William and Rachel Cazalet, their three grown sons,
and the sons' wives and children. As the novel opens, the extended family is
undertaking its summer relocation to the country house in Sussex. During the
course of this summer and the next, readers become witness to the public and
private selves of the individual family members. Beguilingly, those selves are
often at odds.
The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters
Waters reflects on the collapse of the British class
system after WWII through an eerie haunted house tale. Dr. Faraday is called to
Hundreds Hall, home of the upper-class Ayreses, now fallen on hard times.
Ostensibly there to treat Roderick Ayres for a war injury, Faraday soon sees
signs of mental decline—first in Roderick and later in his mother. The
skeptical Faraday refuses to accept the explanations of Roderick and the maid,
who believe that there is a supernatural presence in the house. This spooky read
has the added pleasure of detailing postwar village life, with its rationing,
social strictures, and gossip, all on the edge of Britain's massive change to a
social state.
Love and War: An Upstairs Downstairs Saga
by Anne Herries
Life for the residents of Trenwith Hall will never be the
same when war is declared, as Luke
Trenwith and groomsman Jack Barlow both leave to fight in the trenches. Jack is
injured in France and loses his memory. When he regains it, will he return to
England or stay behind with his new love and be thought a deserter? Jack’s
sister Rose volunteers as a hospital aide and thinks fondly of Luke, heir to
Trenwith Hall, but marries a young officer instead. When her husband is shot
down, she is alone—believing that her brother is dead. Luke keeps the truth of
her brother's situation a secret as well as his longing for his former maid.
Love in a Cold Climate by Nancy Mitford
Eldest of the Mitford daughters, Nancy used her
aristocratic and somewhat eccentric upbringing to write novels. This one is the
classic comedy of upper crust English manners and mores on the subject of love
between the Wars. Polly Hampton has long been groomed for the perfect marriage
by her mother, Lady Montdore. But Polly is bored by the monotony of her
glittering debut season in London. Having just come from India, she claims to
have hoped that society in a colder climate would be less obsessed with love
affairs. She has a long-held secret, however, which leads to the shattering of
her mother’s dreams and her own disinheritance.
Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear
If you enjoy the exploration of the effects of WWI on
society, you might like this series set in the 1920s and ’30s. Its heroine—once
a maid in a great house, now a private investigator—personifies the changing
times and takes on cases that are rooted in the damage done by the war. Maisie
Dobbs entered domestic service in 1910 at 13, working for Lady Rowan Compton.
When her remarkable intelligence is discovered by her employer, Maisie becomes
the pupil of Maurice Blanche, a learned friend of the Comptons. In 1929, Maisie
hangs out her shingle: M. Dobbs, Trade and Personal Investigations.
Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
Virginia Woolf's novel follows a day in the life of
Clarissa Dalloway, an upper class married Englishwoman, whose inner life exists
in a state of continuous tension. She is torn between the boring conventional existence
she has chosen to lead and thoughts of what might have been, had she accepted
the marriage proposal of the Bohemian Peter Walsh. But Walsh too, has his
doubts, and Woolf shows that all her characters, despite making radically
different life-choices, are ultimately left uneasy and questioning of their
role and existence. Outwardly self-assured, inwardly despairing, Mrs. Dalloway
symbolizes upper class English Society, of which the novel is, in part, a
critique.
My Dear I Wanted to Tell You by Louisa
Young
The lives of two very different couples—an officer and
his aristocratic wife and a young soldier and his childhood sweetheart—are
irrevocably intertwined and forever changed in this WWI epic of love and war. The
aristocrats, Peter and Julia Locke, are lovely and well-placed until their
relationship disintegrates under the pressure of war and changing conventions.
Working class Riley and Nadine are hampered before the war by the very upper
crustiness that the Lockes embody, but are later more free to love each other
and better suited for survival by their modernity and openness. This novel
moves from London to Paris and Ypres.
My Man Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse
My Man Jeeves
is a collection of short stories by P. G. Wodehouse. Who can forget our beloved
gentleman's personal gentleman, Jeeves, who always comes to the rescue when the
hapless Bertie Wooster falls into trouble? The Jeeves series is sure to please
anyone with a taste for moronic misunderstandings, gaffes, and aristocratic
slapstick. Wodehouse’s witty banter between the buffoonish Bertie Wooster and
his impeccably competent manservant Jeeves is a perfect fit for fans of the
Dowager Countess’s perfectly-timed one-liners. (Available as an Overdrive ebook
only.)
No Graves as Yet by Anne Perry
This is the debut novel in Perry's five-book series about
a British family during World War I. The family in question includes brothers
Matthew and Joseph Reavley and sisters Judith and Hannah, whose parents are
killed in a car accident. Their father had been on his way to deliver a
document of supposed national importance, but Matthew, a trusted employee in
the Intelligence Service, can't quite believe that the document could really
threaten Britain's honor. Meanwhile, Joseph, an ordained minister and teacher
of classical languages at Cambridge, struggles with the senseless murder of his
brilliant protégé. Set during the idyllic summer of 1914, the novel portrays a
world about to be torn apart by war.
Parade’s End by Ford Madox Ford
Parade’s End
has been adapted by BBC/HBO and will premiere on February 26. (It already aired
in the UK, where it was a big hit.) In fact, it has been called “Downton Abbey for Grownups” (Salon) and “The Better Downton Abbey” (The New Yorker). The book is a compilation of four novels which
tell the terrifying story of a good man tortured, pursued, driven into revolt,
and ruined as far as the world is concerned by the clever devices of a jealous
and lying wife. War turns the world of privileged, English aristocrat
Christopher Tietjens upside down and forces him to question everything he holds
dear.
Past Imperfect by Julian Fellowes
If it's the foibles of high society that you Downton Abbey viewers find most
appealing, then the works of Downton Abbey
creator Julian Fellowes are must-reads. Fellowes' second novel, Past Imperfect, is a contemporary
tale that looks back on the London of the Swinging Sixties while one friend
searches for the lost heir of another friend-turned-foe. Droll humor mixed with
suspense and an acute eye for historical detail are hallmarks of Fellowes'
writing. Also try his book Snobs,
which is set in the present but contains characters of the same type. Think
Cousin Violet.
Regeneration by Pat Barker
The first in a trilogy based on a true story, Regeneration depicts the psychological
effects of the war on surviving soldiers. In 1917, decorated British officer
and poet Siegfried Sassoon wrote a declaration condemning the war. Instead of a
court-martial, he was sent to a hospital for “shell-shocked” officers where he
was treated by Dr. William Rivers, noted anthropologist and psychiatrist. Sassoon's
complete sanity disturbs Dr. Rivers to the point that he questions his own role
in “curing” patients only to send them back to the slaughter in France. WWI
decimated an entire generation of men, and the horrifying loss of life and the
callousness of the government led to the obliteration of the Victorian ideal.
Barker has written many novels about this time period—also try her newest, Toby’s Room.
The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
Ishiguro is known for his character-driven, thoughtful,
and occasionally funny fiction, and this story of the snobby, dignity obsessed
Stevens is no exception. Set shortly after WWII, this Man Booker-winning novel parallels Downton Abbey’s more somber moments in the
depiction of a devoted servant in one of England’s declining manor houses. At
the end of his three decades of service at Darlington Hall, Stevens embarks on
a country drive, during which he looks back over his career to reassure himself
that he has served humanity by serving “a great gentleman.” But lurking in his
memory are doubts about the true nature of Lord Darlington’s “greatness” and
graver doubts about his own faith in the man he served.
A Room with a View by E.M. Forster
This Edwardian social comedy explores love and prim
propriety among an eccentric cast of characters. A charming young English
woman, Lucy Honeychurch, faints into the arms of a fellow Brit when she
witnesses a murder in a Florentine piazza. Attracted to this man, George
Emerson—who is entirely unsuitable and whose father may be a Socialist—Lucy is
soon at war with the snobbery of her class and her own conflicting desires.
Back in England she is courted by a more acceptable, if stifling, suitor, and
soon realizes she must make a decision that will decide the course of her
future: she is forced to choose between fulfilling her social role or following
her heart. Also try Forster’s Howards End.
The Stranger's Child by Alan Hollinghurst
This is a country estate drama with prewar ambience,
manor-house mystique, and sexual tension. Embraced by the family of his
Cambridge schoolmate, Cecil Valance writes an inspiring poem that becomes a
staple of every English classroom after he is killed during WWI. The poem,
created as an autograph book keepsake for his friend’s younger sister, Daphne,
becomes the subject of speculation for biographers and the generations that
follow, as it contains hints about what might have happened during the visit. The
novel moves through the decades, following the family fortunes of Daphne and
her progeny, and the events of that less tolerant era are viewed through an
ever-cloudier lens.
Non-fiction
The Beauty and the Sorrow by Peter
Englund (640.3 Eng)
Leading Swedish historian Englund allows 20 individuals
during WWI to convey their experiences through diaries and letters: among them,
an English nurse in the Russian army, a British infantryman awarded the
Victoria Cross, a German seaman, and a Venezuelan cavalryman in the Ottoman
army. Englund’s collation provides insights into more than the carnage. For
example, a French infantryman at Verdun knows, despite lower figures in
newspaper reports, that he went into battle with 100 men and only 30 returned.
Lacking only a Turkish Muslim view, this book fleshes out the grim statistics
of the Great War.
Below Stairs by Margaret Powell (Bio
Powell Margaret)
Fascinated by class distinctions? This is the account of
the kitchen maid who inspired Upstairs Downstairs. In
this memoir, Margaret tells her tales of service with wit, warmth, and a sharp
eye. From the gentleman with a penchant for stroking housemaids’ curlers,
to raucous tea dances with errand boys, to the heartbreaking story of Agnes the
pregnant under-parlourmaid, fired for being seduced by her mistress’s nephew, Below Stairs evokes the
long vanished world of masters and servants portrayed in Downton Abbey and Upstairs
Downstairs.”
Lady Almina and the Real Downton Abbey
by Fiona, Countess of Carnarvon (942.2 Car)
Drawing on a rich store of materials from the archives of
Highclere Castle, including diaries, letters, and photographs, the current Lady
Carnarvon tells the story of Highclere Castle (the real-life inspiration for Downton
Abbey) and the life of one of its most famous inhabitants, Lady Almina (the
5th Countess of Carnarvon and the basis of the fictional character Lady Cora
Crawley). Throwing open the doors of Highclere Castle to tend to the
wounded of World War I, Lady Almina distinguished herself as a brave and
remarkable woman. This tale contrasts the splendor of Edwardian life in a great
house against the backdrop of the Great War.
If you liked Gone
Girl by Gillian Flynn, you might enjoy one of these books:
