Houses in literature have captured readers’ imaginations for centuries; from Gothic castles to Georgian stately homes; Bloomsbury townhouses and high-rise penthouses. Step on to a tour of real and imagined houses that great English writers have used to reflect the themes of their novels… houses that became like characters themselves; embodiments of the social and historical currents of their time.Phyllis Richardson takes us on a journey through history to discover how authors’ personal experiences in their homes helped to shape the imaginative dwellings that have become icons of English literature:Virginia Woolf’s love of Talland House in Cornwall is palpable in To the Lighthouse; just as London’s Bloomsbury is ever-present in Mrs Dalloway. E.M. Forster’s childhood home at Rook’s Nest mirrors the idyllic charm of Howards End. Evelyn Waugh plotted Charles Ryder’s return to Brideshead while a guest at Madresfield. Jane Austen was no stranger to a manor house or a good ballroom. And Horace Walpole’s ‘little Gothic castle’ in Twickenham inspired him to write the first English Gothic novel; The Castle of Otranto.But the English country house; from the idyllic to the unloved; is also viewed through a modern lens – Kazuo Ishiguro’s Darlington Hall; Ian McEwan’s Tallis House; Alan Hollinghurts’s Two Acres.Using historic sources; authors’ biographies; letters; news accounts; and the novels themselves; The House of Fiction presents some of the most influential houses in Britain through the stories they inspired; while offering candid glimpses of the writers who brought them to life.
2014-09-02 2014-09-02File Name: B01N6J0FT2
Review
