I Capture the Castle - Softcover

Smith, Dodie

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0312201656 ISBN 13: 9780312201654

Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin, 1999

Synopsis

One of the 20th Century's most beloved novels is still winning hearts!

I Capture the Castle tells the story of seventeen-year-old Cassandra and her family, who live in not-so-genteel poverty in a ramshackle old English castle. Here she strives, over six turbulent months, to hone her writing skills. She fills three notebooks with sharply funny yet poignant entries. Her journals candidly chronicle the great changes that take place within the castle's walls, and her own first descent into love. By the time she pens her final entry, she has "captured the castle"-- and the heart of the reader-- in one of literature's most enchanting entertainments.

“This book has one of the most charismatic narrators I've ever met.” -- J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter series

Bonus: Reading Group Discussion Guide included in this edition

About this title

Review:

Seventeen-year-old Cassandra Mortmain wants to become a writer. Trouble is, she's the daughter of a once-famous author with a severe case of writer's block. Her family--beautiful sister Rose, brooding father James, ethereal stepmother Topaz--is barely scraping by in a crumbling English castle they leased when times were good. Now there's very little furniture, hardly any food, and just a few pages of notebook paper left to write on. Bravely making the best of things, Cassandra gets hold of a journal and begins her literary apprenticeship by refusing to face the facts. She writes, "I have just remarked to Rose that our situation is really rather romantic, two girls in this strange and lonely house. She replied that she saw nothing romantic about being shut up in a crumbling ruin surrounded by a sea of mud."

Rose longs for suitors and new tea dresses while Cassandra scorns romance: "I know all about the facts of life. And I don't think much of them." But romantic isolation comes to an end both for the family and for Cassandra's heart when the wealthy, adventurous Cotton family takes over the nearby estate. Cassandra is a witty, pensive, observant heroine, just the right voice for chronicling the perilous cusp of adulthood. Some people have compared I Capture the Castle to the novels of Jane Austen, and it's just as well-plotted and witty. But the Mortmains are more bohemian--as much like the Addams Family as like any of Austen's characters. Dodie Smith, author of 101 Dalmations, wrote this novel in 1948. And though the story is set in the 1930s, it still feels fresh, and well deserves its reputation as a modern classic. --Maria Dolan

From the Publisher:

"I Capture the Castle is finally back in print. It should be welcomed with a bouquet of roses and a brass band. Ever since I was handed a tattered copy years ago with the recommendation 'You'll love it,' it has been one of my favorite novels. Cassandra Mortmain is one hell of a narrator, offering sharp wit, piercing insight and touching lyricism. She is a heroine we readers wish we could be, a young woman it is impossible not to adore." --Susan Isaacs

"Dreamy and funny...an odd, shimmering timelessness clings to its pages. A thousand and one cheers for its reissue. A+" --Entertainment Weekly

"It is an occasion worth celebrating when a sparkling novel, a work of wit, irony and feeling is brought back into print after an absence of many years. So uncork the champagne for I Capture the Castle." --Los Angeles Times

"It's as fresh as if it were written this morning and as classic as Jane Austen. I'm very happy to have met it." --Donald Westlake

"A delicious, compulsively readable novel about young love and its vicissitudes. What fun!" --Erica Jong

"Much more fun than the reader has any right to expect." --The Weekly Standard

About this edition

• Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0312201656
• ISBN 13: 9780312201654
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 343