House of Trelawney
A novel
(Sprache: Englisch)
From the author of The Improbability of Love comes a dazzling novel both satirical and moving, about an eccentric, dysfunctional family of English aristocrats and their crumbling stately home, demonstrating how the lives and hopes of women can be shaped...
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From the author of The Improbability of Love comes a dazzling novel both satirical and moving, about an eccentric, dysfunctional family of English aristocrats and their crumbling stately home, demonstrating how the lives and hopes of women can be shaped by the ties of family and love.For more than seven hundred years, the vast, rambling Trelawney Castle in Cornwall--turrets, follies, a room for every day of the year, four miles of corridors and 500,000 acres--was the magnificent and grand "three dimensional calling card" of the earls of Trelawney. By 2008, it is in a complete state of ruin due to the dulled ambition and the financial ineptitude of twenty-four earls, two world wars, the Wall Street crash, and inheritance taxes. Still: the heir to all of it, Kitto, his wife, Jane, their three children, their dog, Kitto's ancient parents, and his aunt Tuffy Scott, an entomologist who studies fleas, all manage to live there and (barely) keep it going.
Four women dominate the story: Jane; Kitto's sister, Blaze, who left Trelawney and made a killing in finance in London, the wildly beautiful, seductive, and long-ago banished Anastasia and her daughter, Ayesha. When Anastasia sends a letter announcing that her nineteen-year-old daughter, Ayesha, will be coming to stay, the long-estranged Blaze and Jane must band together to take charge of their new visitor--and save the house of Trelawney. But both Blaze and Jane are about to discover that the house itself is really only a very small part of what keeps the family together.
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ITrelawney Castle
Wednesday 4th June 2008
Trelawney Castle, home to the same family for eight hundred years, sits on a bluff of land overlooking the South Cornish sea. Since their ennoblement in 1179, the Earls of Trelawney used wealth and stealth to stay on the winning side of history; ruthlessly and unscrupulously switching allegiances or bribing their way to safety and positions of authority. The castle was their three-dimensional calling card, the physical embodiment of their wealth and influence. Each Earl added an extension until it was declared the grandest, if not the finest, stately home in the county of Cornwall.
In summer months, until the First World War, it was the custom of the family and guests to take the Trelawney barge from the Trelawney boathouse, through Trelawney land, past Trelawney follies and temples, to Trelawney Cove where they could use the seaside house (Little Trelawney Castle) or sail the yacht (the Trelawney). In the winter, the same ilk would hunt with the Trelawney foxhounds or shoot game raised on the Trelawney Estate. At that time, the family were so landed and powerful that they could travel from Trelawney to Bath, from the south coast to the Bristol Channel, without stepping off their own domain. This swathe of England became known as Trelawneyshire, an area of 500,000 acres including forty miles of coastline. With the advent of the railway, those family members who chose to go as far as London (most refused and who could blame them) would travel from Trelawney Station in a private train stamped inside and out with the Trelawney coat of arms.
By the early nineteenth century, the castle had expanded sufficiently to have a room for each day of the year, eleven staircases and four miles of hallways. After King George III s favourite mistress became hopelessly lost in the maze of corridors and nearly died from hypothermia, guests were, thenceforth, given a miniature crested silver casket containing
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different-coloured confetti to sprinkle on the floor, so as to leave a personal trail to and from their bedrooms.
The Victorian diarist Rudyard Johnson, a regular guest, wrote: The castle is made of four main blocks, each built a century apart in markedly different styles. Part of the amusement of Trelawney is sleeping in an Elizabethan bedroom, breakfasting in a Jacobean hall, taking tea in a Regency conservatory and dancing in a Georgian ballroom. For those who like a morning constitutional, the battlement walk is a perfect 400-yard perambulation. The respected eighteenth-century architectural historian J. M. Babcock dismissed the castle as a vomitorium of conflicting architectural styles, reflecting the whims of wealthy, ill-educated and self-indulgent aristocrats.
Until the early twentieth century, rooms were lit by candle or oil lamps and warmed by open fires. Hot water was prepared in vast cauldrons on stoves in the basement and carried in buckets to the bathrooms. Even human waste, kept in porcelain dishes mounted in wooden boxes or cupboards, was disposed of by (a servant s) hand. Eighty-five members of domestic staff were employed to carry out those tasks, including a butler, housekeeper, kitchen maids, footmen, chars and a clock man; outside there were sixty more, ranging from gardeners and grooms to mole catchers and coachmen, and even a bear and camel keeper. In 1920 the decision was taken to instal central heating, plumbing and electricity. It was a Sisyphean task, started but never finished. Only the Georgian wing was modernised, providing nine bathrooms for eighty-four bedrooms and a total of eleven radiators.
The castle made its own music: pipes hissed and gurgled; house-parties filled the septic tanks under the cellars; and a constant plop and gurgle underscored every activity. Wide wooden floorboards let ou
The Victorian diarist Rudyard Johnson, a regular guest, wrote: The castle is made of four main blocks, each built a century apart in markedly different styles. Part of the amusement of Trelawney is sleeping in an Elizabethan bedroom, breakfasting in a Jacobean hall, taking tea in a Regency conservatory and dancing in a Georgian ballroom. For those who like a morning constitutional, the battlement walk is a perfect 400-yard perambulation. The respected eighteenth-century architectural historian J. M. Babcock dismissed the castle as a vomitorium of conflicting architectural styles, reflecting the whims of wealthy, ill-educated and self-indulgent aristocrats.
Until the early twentieth century, rooms were lit by candle or oil lamps and warmed by open fires. Hot water was prepared in vast cauldrons on stoves in the basement and carried in buckets to the bathrooms. Even human waste, kept in porcelain dishes mounted in wooden boxes or cupboards, was disposed of by (a servant s) hand. Eighty-five members of domestic staff were employed to carry out those tasks, including a butler, housekeeper, kitchen maids, footmen, chars and a clock man; outside there were sixty more, ranging from gardeners and grooms to mole catchers and coachmen, and even a bear and camel keeper. In 1920 the decision was taken to instal central heating, plumbing and electricity. It was a Sisyphean task, started but never finished. Only the Georgian wing was modernised, providing nine bathrooms for eighty-four bedrooms and a total of eleven radiators.
The castle made its own music: pipes hissed and gurgled; house-parties filled the septic tanks under the cellars; and a constant plop and gurgle underscored every activity. Wide wooden floorboards let ou
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Autoren-Porträt von Hannah Rothschild
HANNAH ROTHSCHILD is the author of The Improbability of Love and The Baroness: The Search for Nica, the Rebellious Rothschild. She is also a company director and a filmmaker who has made documentary features and series for the BBC and HBO. She writes for The Times, The New York Times, Vogue, Bazaar, and Vanity Fair. She is a vice president of the Hay Literary Festival, a former trustee of the Tate Gallery, and in 2015 became the first woman to chair the trustees of the National Gallery. In 2018, she was made a CBE for services to the arts and to philanthropy. She lives in London with her three daughters.
Bibliographische Angaben
- Autor: Hannah Rothschild
- 2021, 384 Seiten, Maße: 13,2 x 20,3 cm, Kartoniert (TB), Englisch
- Verlag: VINTAGE
- ISBN-10: 0525564047
- ISBN-13: 9780525564041
- Erscheinungsdatum: 15.05.2021
Sprache:
Englisch
Pressezitat
The idea of eccentric British aristocrats in a crumbling mansion is at the heart of some of literature s greatest works . . . . Rothschild s book is the latest in a long line of novels by the likes of Jane Austen and Evelyn Waugh. Adam Rathe, Town & Country ( How one new novel gets British money exactly right )
Irresistible . . . . Rothschild s tale is lively and entertaining.
--Amanda Craig, The Guardian
"Part comedy of manners, part serious meditation on money and gender roles, House of Trelawney is both deeply thought-provoking and thoroughly fun."
BookPage
A real page turner . . . sparklingly acerbic social satire . . . . Funny and absorbing, House of Trelawney is the perfect antidote to a grey, Scottish winter s day.
John Badenhorst, The Courier & Advertiser
Evelyn Waugh meets the love child of Richard Curtis and the brilliant Joanna Trollope.
Geordie Greig, The Daily Mail
Rothschild is a witty, stylish storyteller and her overall message feels timely.
Lucy Atkins, The Sunday Times
Snappy and sexy.
Lionel Barber, Former Editor of The Financial Times
This canny comedy of manners straddles the worlds of high finance and the crumbling aristocracy, braiding love, revenge and market meltdown . . . generous-hearted, it delights from start to finish.
Hephzibah Anderson, The Daily Mail
Rothschild is a writer of high intelligence . . . . House of Trelawney says a lot about the dangers of dwelling on past entitlement and the importance of unsentimental realism.
Kate Saunders, The Times
"Nothing is left out in this madcap . . . novel, which parodies British aristocracy on one hand and the social-climbing world of new money on the other. There are odd, unlikely romances, a suicide, and babies born out of wedlock . . . Ms. Rothschild is an intelligent writer and an elegant prose stylist. The first female chair of the
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National Gallery, she describes her characters physical characteristics with the eye of someone who s spent a lifetime looking carefully at paintings . . . Britain, that sceptered isle, is a shadow of its former self. But one thing the British haven t lost is their sense of humor, and Ms. Rothschild provides a large dose of it in this quirky satire. --Moira Hodgson, The Wall Street Journal
A gripping saga about a once grand, now decaying, family in Cornwall whose house is literally falling down around their ears.
Lynn Barber, The Telegraph
Rothschild is a mischievous narrator and this story is pure pleasure from the word go.
Stylist Online (Best Books of 2020)
Rothschild s engaging tale House of Trelawney cleverly satirizes an unconventional aristocratic clan who have run into money troubles.
Martin Chilton, The Independent Online
This slyly comic novel is a great dissection of class and privilege.
Red
Curl up and lose yourself in this hugely entertaining satire of a deeply dysfunctional family of aristocrats desperate to save their crumbling Cornwall home.
i paper
[Rothschild] paces [her novel] perfectly, laying out the history of the Trelawneys and their castle vividly, and timing the orchestration of characters and events at a brisk tempo . . . when current times seem full of intractable problems and short on answers perhaps a bit of escapism tinged with schadenfreude, seen here by a sharp eye and seasoned with a tart tongue, may be just what s needed.
--Claire Hopley, The Washington Times
[A] rollicking tale . . . . Jilly Cooper fans (and who isn t?) will love the unashamedly upmarket settings and posh characters. A romcom to beat the winter blues: funny, sharply-observed and boho-chic glamorous.
--Wendy Holden, Scottish Daily Mail
Rothschild s style has been compared to comic writers such as Waugh and Mitford, which are apt in terms of both style and milieu, but comparisons can also be made to Austen and Dickens, as she shares their ability to create comic characters and to then put those characters in situations that allows the author to make satirical/social commentary . . . . an intelligent and entertaining romp.
--Caroline Percy, The Nerd Daily
A gripping saga about a once grand, now decaying, family in Cornwall whose house is literally falling down around their ears.
Lynn Barber, The Telegraph
Rothschild is a mischievous narrator and this story is pure pleasure from the word go.
Stylist Online (Best Books of 2020)
Rothschild s engaging tale House of Trelawney cleverly satirizes an unconventional aristocratic clan who have run into money troubles.
Martin Chilton, The Independent Online
This slyly comic novel is a great dissection of class and privilege.
Red
Curl up and lose yourself in this hugely entertaining satire of a deeply dysfunctional family of aristocrats desperate to save their crumbling Cornwall home.
i paper
[Rothschild] paces [her novel] perfectly, laying out the history of the Trelawneys and their castle vividly, and timing the orchestration of characters and events at a brisk tempo . . . when current times seem full of intractable problems and short on answers perhaps a bit of escapism tinged with schadenfreude, seen here by a sharp eye and seasoned with a tart tongue, may be just what s needed.
--Claire Hopley, The Washington Times
[A] rollicking tale . . . . Jilly Cooper fans (and who isn t?) will love the unashamedly upmarket settings and posh characters. A romcom to beat the winter blues: funny, sharply-observed and boho-chic glamorous.
--Wendy Holden, Scottish Daily Mail
Rothschild s style has been compared to comic writers such as Waugh and Mitford, which are apt in terms of both style and milieu, but comparisons can also be made to Austen and Dickens, as she shares their ability to create comic characters and to then put those characters in situations that allows the author to make satirical/social commentary . . . . an intelligent and entertaining romp.
--Caroline Percy, The Nerd Daily
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