Marling Hall: A Barsetshire Novel - Softcover

Thirkell, Angela Mackail

3.87

425 ratings by Goodreads

9780786702732: Marling Hall: A Barsetshire Novel

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0786702737 ISBN 13: 9780786702732

Publisher: Carroll & Graf Pub, 1995

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Mr. Marling, of Marling Hall, realizes he will probably never be able to hold onto his wonderful old estate and to pass it down to his children. World War II is bringing an end to so many things, but the Marlings carry on as best they can in the face of rationing and changed living conditions. Into their world erupt Geoffrey Harvey and his sister Frances, bombed out of their London home. Bohemian and sophisticated, they rent a local house and it is not long before they begin to have an effect on their neighbors. Geoffrey begins to court Lettice, the Marlings' older widowed daughter, but he finds he has rivals for her affections in her cousin David Lindsey and Captain Barclay. Observing everything and quietly keeping events on an even keel is Miss Bunting. Observing everything and quietly keeping events on an even keel is Miss Bunting.

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Review:

This dry comedy of manners, set in a parochial England that was rapidly disappearing under the threat of Nazi Germany, was the first of Thirkell's increasingly dark novels written during World War II. But the placid surface of middle-class life in towns such as Marling Melicent--where a bohemian, faintly disreputable brother and sister suddenly appear and rent an Edwardian manor--remains mostly undisturbed. Thirkell, who portrayed a vanishing England, is enjoying something of a revival with many of her 40-odd novels being reprinted in the United States.

About the Author:

Angela Thirkell (1890-1961) was the eldest daughter of John William Mackail, a Scottish classical scholar and civil servant, and Margaret Burne-Jones. Her relatives included the pre-Raphaelite artist Edward Burne-Jones, Rudyard Kipling and Stanley Baldwin, and her grandfather was J. M. Barrie. She was educated in London and Paris, and began publishing articles and stories in the 1920s. In 1931 she brought out her first book, a memoir entitled Three Houses, and in 1933 her comic novel High Rising - set in the fictional county of Barsetshire, borrowed from Trollope - met with great success. She went on to write nearly thirty Barsetshire novels, as well as several further works of fiction and non-fiction. She was twice married and had four children.

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