Tag: Downton Abbey

Escape to the Past—the joys of historical novels

Adele Fasick3 Comments

At a time when present day life often seems overly complicated and depressing, many reading in bathtubreaders as well as many TV viewers choose to go back to earlier times. Somehow it seems as though life must have been simpler then, although the truth is that it wasn’t. Finding enough food for the family and keeping young babies alive was a lot harder than coping with an overcrowded bus on the daily commute.

Even though we know life wasn’t really simple in the old days, it’s easy to believe that it was because the problems were different. After all, the Regency heroines of romance novels never had to worry about having a scandalous video of their indiscretions turn up on Facebook.

But historical novels often deal with issues that are very current and similar to what’s going on today. Margaret Atwood’s Alias Grace might be set in a different time, but the alias-gracedifficulty of judging guilt or innocence in a crime is a perennial problem. It will be interesting to see whether the TV version of Alias Grace treats the subject with as much depth as the book did.

TV is often scorned as offering a more sanitized and false picture of the past than historical fiction books. Certainly the imagined world of Downton Abbey which attracted so many viewers, brought people into a domain where servants and gentry shared not only an estate but also a world view. The master and mistress of the house cared about the servants and thoughtfully helped them through their troubles. In the end almost everyone made out all right.

Novels that deal with servants and masters are often far more frank than TV shows about the carelessness and cruelties that often make a servant’s life miserable. If you pride and prejudicereally want a glimpse of what it was like to be a servant in early 19th century England, you might want to read Jo Baker’s Longbourn, which gives a fascinating glimpse of the life of a servant in the service of Jane Austen’s fictional Bennet family from Pride and Prejudice. Admittedly Jane Austen wrote about an earlier historical period than Downton Abbey, but it is hard not to believe that Baker’s view of the world is far more realistic than the one offered by the familiar TV series.

If you are a fan of historical fiction, whether mysteries set in medieval Europe or novels based on American history like The Underground Railroad, you’ll enjoy this great list of historical novels website.    Choose your century and ENJOY!

 

 

What’s Happening at the Grand Houses of England?

Adele Fasick2 Comments

How can anyone write a blog post today without mentioning Downton Abbey the PBS show that has a vast swath of Americans waiting impatiently for its Fourth Season debut tonight? For weeks, media outlets have offered tantalizing glimpses of what is in store for Lord Grantham, Lady Cora and their family, friends and staff. Mary, the newly widowed eldest daughter, seems to be the focus of the new season, but others in the show have more unusual roles and play more historically resonant characters.

Lady Cora joins the ranks of the real-life American heiresses who married British aristocrats during the tail end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th. Like Winston Churchill’s mother, Jennie Jerome Churchill, Lady Cora represents the marriage of American wealth with British titles. The privileged lives of the upstairs contingent of the Downton Abbey cast are puritanical compared with the scandalous behavior of the real life counterparts of Edwardian aristocrats. Jennie

Photo of Jennie Jerome
Jennie Jerome before her marriage
Churchill was reported to have had many lovers, but that didn’t prevent her from playing a central role in aristocratic society. And unlike Lady Cora, Lady Churchill did not appear to be very involved in the upbringing or lives of her children. As a child Winston Churchill seldom saw his mother who relied on nannies and servants to care for her children. Compared with the Churchills, the Grantham family seems middle-class; they are almost modern helicopter parents, concerned in the day-to-day struggles of their daughters, their servants and their relatives. And who among us can imagine Lady Cora having an affair with another man?

Perhaps this season’s series will concentrate on Lady Mary and her adjustment to widowhood. There will be suitors no doubt, but it seems like an old, old story that we’ve seen many times before. Much more interesting would be following the adventures of Lady Edith, who is tempted to move to London and take up with a man married to an insane woman. Barred from divorce by English law, Edith’s admirer will have no choice but to persuade her to accept a status as mistress. Will she be willing? I can’t help hoping that she can build herself a fine career as a journalist, move in with her lover, and have a far more exciting life than could ever be found at Downton Abbey.

And then there is Daisy. Will she take on the farm that her father-in-law is trying to give her? Instead of being a kitchen maid, or even the family cook, she could become a successful farmer and build herself a new kind of life. Her story would be far more fun to follow than poor Mary’s. After all Mary is stuck with living in the Abbey until her son can take the reins of managing the house. No matter which suitor she accepts her life is pretty well laid out.

In fact, the downstairs contingent of Downton Abbey have more to look forward to than their counterparts upstairs. The 1920s brought in sweeping changing which meant upward movement for the hordes of women and men working in domestic service. Leaving the grand mansions to become factory workers, shopkeepers, teaches, nurses and other possible new jobs gave them far more independence than they ever had before, while their “betters” struggled to keep their outdated lifestyles going. Let’s hope the producers give us a glimpse of the new world opening up for so many former servants after World War I.

In between episodes, if you want to find out more about the American heiresses who traveled to England to marry, read To Marry an English Lord by Gail MacColl and Carol McD. Wallace. It paints a lively picture of transatlantic entanglements that helped draw our two countries together.