In Which I Mingle with the British Upper Classes

I read, one right after the other, three books that featured the ways and fashions and eccentricities of the British upper class. All three I bought at the recent Summer Used Book Sale at Locust Grove. 

First up was Snobs by Julian Fellowes that I wrote about here. I found it to be a witty and gossipy look at a fictional aristocratic family and an outsider's attempts to fit in.

Then came my first brush with Nancy Mitford in her comic novel Love in a Cold Climate. This one I almost bailed on as at first I couldn't keep the characters straight. They all had titles and names and nicknames and nicknames of nicknames. Very confusing but I persevered and I am glad I did. The story, which centers around Polly Montdore and her strange choice in a marriage partner, really took off for me with the appearance later in the book of the heir-apparent to the Montdore fortune, Cedric. By now, Polly has been disinherited by her very, very wealthy father. Cedric flies and flits across the pages. He is quite flamboyant. He loves beautiful things, has great taste, and is quite the flatterer.  A great character.

The final book was A Handful of Dust by Evelyn Waugh. I know it was written to satirize the British "landed gentry and mercantile class" of the 1930s but I saw it as of novel of grief. 

Tony Last grieves for the days when there was money enough to care for the beloved country manor house that he inherited - along with its exorbitant death taxes. His wife, Brenda, grieves for the gay life she feels she is missing in London and takes up with an unsuitable and boring fellow named John Beaver. John Beaver grieves because he hasn't the money to allow him entry to the upper class society that he craves. No one really likes him and he is only useful to his moneyed acquaintances as a last minute guest to make an even number at a luncheon or dinner table.

When a family tragedy breaks the hearts of both Tony and Brenda, he takes off on an ill-fated exploration trip to South America. Things don't turn out too well for Brenda either, as John drops her when he realizes she isn't going to get much of Tony's money. 

This book has a very odd ending which I won't give away. Suffice it to say, there is more grief before the final page.

Now I will leave the British upper classes to their own devices and deceits.  Next up, the memoir of Australian-born writer John Baxter and his globetrotting travels in search of books. It's titled A Pound of Paper: Confessions of a Book Addict and is already promising to be great fun. 

What are you planning on reading this weekend?

Snobs by Julian Fellowes

I dare say if you have watched any of Downton Abbey then you might think you know just how things work within the British aristocracy. But, there is more! Before Julian Fellowes created DA, he wrote a very funny book called Snobs. 

Told by an unnamed narrator, this tale of a middle-class, beautiful young woman who marries into a titled family definitely gives the reader more than a taste of how actually staid and perhaps just a tad boring the lives of the Upper Classes can be. It is not all fancy dress balls, garden fetes, and villas in Mallorca. There are plenty of vast, poorly heated country homes and 
interminable talk of hedgerows and hunting.

But lucky Edith Lavery. Her dreams come true when she marries kind-hearted Charles, the Earl Broughton (there is no of in the title as there is no place called Broughton, don't you know) and moves into his world. Not as easy as one might hope for even the well-mannered Edith. The family has known all their friends and acquaintances since birth - and are related to many of them - so most of what they talk about over the silver tea service is one another. Fellowes calls it The Name Game. 

Outsiders beware!

I found this book to be quite amusing because I love the gossipy tone and the insider information. I loved this look at the inner workings of Charles's family, especially how his mother, Lady Uckfield, handles people and events. Stiff upper lip and all that. 

There are many cups of tea, glasses of champagne, and witty lines in this tale. Of course, by the end of the novel, the reader still might not know what really goes on with the Upper Class but will have sure had fun reading Snobs and thinking so.  And, believe me, if this story were played out in a small town in Nebraska, it wouldn't be quite as delicious. 

Here is a taste:
I have often been surprised at the fantastic discomfort and deprivation the grand English are prepared to put their friends (and total strangers) through, particularly in my youth. I've been shown into bathrooms that could just about manage a cold squirt of brown water, bedrooms with doors that don't shut, blankets like tissue, and pillows like rocks. I have driven an hour cross-country to lunch with some grand relations of my father, who gave me one sausage, two small potatoes and twenty-eight peas. Once, during a house-party for a ball in Hampshire, I was so cold that I ended up piling all my clothes, with two threadbare towels, onto the bed and then holding all this together with a worn square of Turkish carpet - the only bit of floor-covering in the room.  When my hostess woke me the next day, she made no comment on the fact that I was sleeping in a sort of webbing sarcophagus and clearly would not have been less interested in whether I had ever shut my eyes. When one thinks of the Edwardians who revelled in luxury it seems odd that their grandchildren should be so impervious to it.

Jewels from the Used Book Sale

I know you all are anxiously awaiting the results of the visit to the Summer Book Sale yesterday.  I got there within forty-five minutes of its opening and it was already crowded, but manageable. I only had an hour or so before I had to leave and my searches kept being interrupted by chats with people I used to work with, in the 1990s, at a large independent bookstore. Imagine that. Former booksellers buying books. Wonders will never cease!

Yes, everyone is in a good mood at a book sale.

Anyway, I donated twenty books and came home with ten. I did feel a bit rushed and am fighting the urge to go back today!

Here is my haul. 

First the paperbacks:

Beau Geste by P.C.Wren

A nice clean paperback edition of this tale of the French Foreign Legion first published in 1924. I read this some years ago and found it full of adventure and great language. I look forward to again accompanying M. Geste on his adventures. Such a colorful and exciting cover!

Love in a Cold Climate by Nancy Mitford

Ah, one of the Mitford Sisters. I have long wanted to read this and I couldn't resist the oh-so-elegant photo of the author on this edition. 

Snobs by Julian Fellowes

I don't remember where I heard about this book by Mr. Fellowes, he of Downton Abbey fame, but as will happen at a used book sale, a woman I had been chatting with over the mystery table tracked me down later to recommend it. I am so glad she did!

And now for the hardcover editions:

Look Homeward, Angel by Thomas Wolfe

The Portable Thomas Wolfe edited by Maxwell Geismar

Having just visited Thomas Wolfe's home in Asheville, North Carolina and unable to find any used editions of his books in the entire city, I was thrilled when not three miles from my home I found two. The Modern Library edition of LHW is very sturdy which will prove to be important when reading its 626 pages. It doesn't have a copyright date, but a handwritten inscription from a woman to her godson is dated Christmas, 1954.

The Viking Portable Reader contains excerpts from all four of Mr. Wolfe's novels and a selection of short stories. Its copyright date is 1950. It is dedicated to TW's editor, Maxwell Perkins.

Barchester Towers by Anthony Trollope

A sweet, small edition and my one and only book by Mr. Trollope. This was first published in 1857. I am not sure of the publication date of this volume. The inscription on the inside cover tells the 'giftee' that this tale was 'the great escape book in England during the war.' I wonder which war she was referring to?

A Handful of Dust by Evelyn Waugh

One cannot go wrong with Mr. Waugh. The novel was first published in England in 1934. This is a 1944 American edition.

Edith Wharton Abroad edited by Sarah Bird Wright

Always happy to find a travel book based on personal experiences. This one covers Ms. Wharton's journeys in Morocco, Italy, and France. It includes photos and illustrations. The cover watercolor is Venetian Canal by John Singer Sargent. Lovely.

A Reader's Guide to Writers' Britain by Sally Varlow

I don't even need to tell you why I snatched this book off the table. It is a wonderful treasure published and printed in Great Britain full of maps, photos, and lively information. Oh, my. Wordsworth, Dickens, Milne, Potter, Stevenson....

A Little Tour in France by Henry James

This poor little volume has seen better days. The cover, which is some sort of leather, crumbles to my touch. I will have to create a protective jacket in order to read it. The inside pages, though, are in fine condition. It is a book of travel episodes published in 1884, with excellent illustrations by Joseph Pennell.  If you remember, Henry James and Edith Wharton were close friends and it seems fitting that I now own a travel book by each of them. This edition contains a preface written by H.J. dated 

August 9, 1900.