To the Manor Born
Annotation:Is this manor house actually trying to kill it's owners? A chilly ghost story set in post-war England. Don't read this one alone at night or you will never get to sleep!
Annotation:Ahh country life: the trees, the meadows, the clean air! A country house can be so relaxing...unless the country house in question becomes the setting against which greed and class are played out! Civility takes a backseat as an all-out tug of war rages for ownership of the Wilcox's country retreat in E.M. Forster's classic novel.
Annotation:Yankees at Tara? Not if Scarlett has anything to say about it! Mitchell's plot features some of the most vividly portrayed descriptions of architectural and natural settings in fiction.
Annotation:Gosh Manor houses are a lot of work to maintain! On top of all that butler Stevens accomplishes, he now has to cope with the intriguing Miss Kenton, the new housekeeper. Will he continue devoting himself to his work with her presence pervading the politically-charged rooms at Darlington Hall?
Annotation:A vivid portrait of a vanished era, and the goings-on behind manor house life.
Annotation:A remarkable and unique overview of the British class system, as seen through the eyes of runaway debutant Jessica Mitford. Mitford, sister to the wickedly-clever novelist Nancy Mitford, describes her family's Cotswold manor house as a combination between a country club, a military barracks, and a mental institution. This memoir provides a hilarious overview of the extraordinary, individualistic, and contradictory antics of the Mitford family.
Annotation:On the surface, the lives of Wharton's characters are as restrained and dignified as the facades of the mansions they inhabit. Wharton's brilliant talent for revealing the reality behind those facades is what drives her narratives and makes her stories resonate.
Annotation:Evelyn Waugh, no fan of the modern world, provides some compelling commentary on the destruction of the manor house, and the role of modern architecture - at least as envisioned through the ambitions of his unforgettable character Lady Metroland.
Annotation:This novel, along with "The Pursuit of Love," rank among the funniest, most endearing novels of the 20th Century. In "Love in a Cold Climate" Mitford continues to describe the eccentric life at Alconleigh though she adds a whole new Manor house, Hampton, filled with equally Mitfordesque characters.
Annotation:Lily Bart has been reared to marry well - it is her primary responsibility. Though she has the means to make an advantageous match, and fulfill her ambition of finding independence by obtaining her own home, something is holding Lily back. One of the most poetic and haunting of Wharton's novels, "The House of Mirth" portrays a class of people structured and defined by their architecture.
Annotation:Nancy Mitford relied upon her own family and family homes as the inspiration for this remarkably funny tale of life at Alconleigh, the Country Seat of the Radlett family. Mitford's voice is remarkable for simultaneously conveying humor, sorrow, irony, and great worldliness.
Annotation:Certainly one of the definitive manor house novels of the 20th century, "Brideshead Revisited" reveals the complicated relations formed between middle class Charles Ryder and the aristocratic Marchmain family. Is it the Marchmain family that Charles is so attracted too...or is it their house?
Annotation:"Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again." With this beautiful sentence, the haunting tale of Manderley begins. The momentum of this novel is amazing: you'll find yourself swept away by the narrative - and Manderley itself propels much of the action.
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Description
Architectural metaphors abound in fiction - so much so that the houses and settings in novels often perpetuate the plots as much as the characters do! From the atmospheric presence of Manderley in "Rebecca," to the war-torn desperation of Tara in "Gone With the Wind," here is a list of novels with narratives that revolve around manor houses.
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