If you like Downton Abbey...: Home
Can't get enough of upstairs, downstairs English manor house drama, intrigue, and romance? If you like (love!) Downton Abbey, you may enjoy one of the following selections...
Non Fiction
- Below Stairs byCall Number: B POWELLISBN: 9781250005441The classic kitchen maid's memoir that inspired the series "Upstairs, Downstairs" and "Downton Abbey" is back--the remarkable true story of an indomitable woman who, though her position was lowly, never stopped aiming high.
- An Edwardian Childhood byCall Number: 305.2309 PETISBN: 9780821219157With more than one hundred colorful and charming illustrations of the period, the author weaves together the memories of children from all social backgrounds to produce a magical picture of childhood in Edwardian Britain.
- George, Nicholas and Wilhelm byCall Number: 940.3112 CARISBN: 9781400043637In the years before the First World War, the great European powers were ruled by three first cousins: King George V of Britain, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany and Tsar Nicholas II of Russia. Together, they presided over the last years of dynastic Europe and the outbreak of the most destructive war the world had ever seen, a war that set twentieth-century Europe on course to be the most violent continent in the history of the world.
- The Perfect Summer: England 1911, Just Before the Storm byCall Number: 942.083 NICISBN: 9780802118462Before the Great War tore England apart and changed the way people lived forever, there was the glorious summer of 1911, when the country seemed full of promise and blissfully unaware of the coming storm.
- Servants' Hall: A Real Life Upstairs, Downstairs Romance byCall Number: B POWELLISBN: 9781250029294Powell tells the true story of Rose, the under-parlourmaid to the Wardham Family at Redlands, who eloped with the family's only son.
- The Secret Rooms byCall Number: B RutlandISBN: 9780143124733For fans of Downton Abbey: the enthralling true story of family secrets and aristocratic intrigue in the days before WWI.
Fiction
- The American Heiress byISBN: 9780312658656Traveling abroad with her mother at the turn of the twentieth century to seek a titled husband, beautiful, vivacious Cora Cash, whose family mansion in Newport dwarfs the Vanderbilts', suddenly finds herself Duchess of Wareham, married to Ivo, the most eligible bachelor in England. Nothing is quite as it seems, however: Ivo is withdrawn and secretive, and the English social scene is full of traps and betrayals. Money, Cora soon learns, cannot buy everything, as she must decide what is truly worth the price in her life and her marriage.
- The Buccaneers byISBN: 9780670852192The novel opens at the height of the 1876 racing season in Saratoga, New York, where mothers with "new money" assess their daughters' competition in the marriage market. It moves to London, where the St. George and Elmsworth girls go because the rigid guardians of American Society will not accept them. The dukes, lords, and marquesses of England, on the other hand, are delighted not only with the girls' beauty but with their fathers' bounty - just what is needed to revitalize impoverished British estates.
- A Duty to the Dead byISBN: 9780061791765A Duty to the Dead, the first book of an exciting new series, is set in England during World War I, and features a spectacular female protagonist.
- Fall of Giants byISBN: 9780525951650The first novel in The Century Trilogy, it follows the fates of five interrelated families - American, German, Russian, English, and Welsh - as they move through the world-shaking dramas of the First World War, the Russian Revolution, and the struggle for women's suffrage.
- Fiennders Keepers byISBN: 9780312155285Richard Fiennders and Mary Bowden, devoted friends as children, belong within those dreams. As they grow older, however, their affection for each other begins to stir uneasiness in their parents. Anne Fiennders would never allow her son to wed the gamekeeper's daughter, and Mary's mother, all too aware of her family's dependence upon the Fiennders estate, will do anything to remain in that family's favor. With the passing years, progress invades the small town, and all of England is awakened. Richard and Mary face the end of an era of rigidly ordered living and the collapse of class barriers as they struggle to break free from their families' expectations and create the life they desire.
- The Forsyte Saga byISBN: 9780684818894The three novels which make up The Forsyte Saga chronicle the ebbing social power of the commercial upper-middle class Forsyte family between 1886 and 1920.
- Habits of the House byISBN: 9781250026620From the award-winning novelist and writer of "Upstairs Downstairs," the launch of a brilliant new trilogy about what life was really like for masters and servants before the world of "Downton Abbey."
- The House at Riverton byISBN: 9781416550518The House at Riverton is a gorgeous debut novel set in England between the wars. It is the story of an aristocratic family, a house, a mysterious death and a way of life that vanished forever, told in flashback by a woman who witnessed it all and kept a secret for decades.
- Howards End byISBN: 9780679406686When the beautiful and independent Helen Schlegel begins an impetuous affair with the ardent Paul Wilcox, a series of events is sparked, some very funny, some very tragic, that results in a dispute over who will inherit Howards End, the Wilcoxes' charming country home.
- Long Live the King byISBN: 9781250028006From the award-winning writer of the original "Upstairs Downstairs"--the second novel in an irresistible trilogy about an Earl's family and his servants at the turn of the 20th century.
- Maisie Dobbs byISBN: 9781569473306She started as a maid in an aristocratic London household; studied her way into prestigious Girton College at Cambridge; then became a front-line nurse in World War I. There she found - and lost - an important part of herself. Now she has set up on her own as a private investigator, one who has learned that coincidences are meaningful. And Fate brings her a case that will force her to confront the ghost that has haunted her for over ten years.
- The Remains of the Day byISBN: 9780394573434A tragic, spiritual portrait of a perfect English butler and his reaction to his fading insular world in post-war England.
- The Woman from Paris byISBN: 9781451676686They had built their lives in this grand old house, its walls encompassing their family and their secrets. Nestled in the sweeping hills they have always known, the house is part of their history, their heritage. But these four walls also hold a secret...
- Longbourn byISBN: 9780385351232In this irresistibly imagined belowstairs answer to "Pride and Prejudice, "the servants take center stage.
- Behind the Shattered Glass byISBN: 9781250024701Anglemore Park is the ancestral home of Lady Emily Hargreave's husband Colin. But the stately calm of country life is destroyed when their neighbor, the Marquess of Montagu, bursts through the French doors from the garden and falls down dead in front of the shocked gathering
- Ashton Park byISBN: 9780736952859Among the green hills and trees of Lancashire, only a few miles from the sea, lies the beautiful and ancient estate of Ashton Park. The year is 1916. The First World War has engulfed Europe and Sir William's and Lady Elizabeth's three sons are all in uniform--and their four daughters are involved in various pursuits of the heart and soul.
DVDs
- Brideshead RevisitedCall Number: DVD BRIA Londoner of lower class befriends and begins a romantic relationship with an aristocrat that becomes complicated when the aristocrat introduces his new friend to his sister.
- Crisis at the CastleCall Number: 728.81 CRIExplores financial troubles of aristocratic families owning English castles.
- The Forsyte SagaCall Number: DVD FORAn adaptation of the classic John Galsworthy novel about Soames Forsyte, his reluctant wife Irene, and their tortured marriage as unrequited love deteriorates with disastrous consequences.
- Gosford ParkCall Number: DVD GOSMultiple storylined drama set in 1932, showing the lives of upstairs guests and downstairs servants at a party in a country house in England.
- Lark Rise to CandlefordCall Number: DVD LARTelevision Series.
Depicts country life in late nineteenth-century Oxfordshire through a young woman's experiences in the contrasting communities of Lark Rise, the small hamlet of her childhood, and Candleford, a progressive market town. - Secrets of the Manor HouseCall Number: 941.082 SECExplores the lives of the upper class British country dwellers during the early twentieth century and the changes that brought about the decline of their social system.
- Upstairs, DownstairsCall Number: DVD UPSThe saga of the aristocratic Bellamy family and their loyal and lively servants.