Angela Thirkell Books In Order

Barsetshire Books In Publication Order

  1. High Rising (1933)
  2. The Demon in the House (1934)
  3. Wild Strawberries (1934)
  4. August Folly (1936)
  5. Summer Half (1937)
  6. Pomfret Towers (1938)
  7. Before Lunch (1939)
  8. The Brandons (1939)
  9. Cheerfulness Breaks In (1940)
  10. Northbridge Rectory (1941)
  11. Marling Hall (1942)
  12. Growing Up (1943)
  13. The Headmistress (1944)
  14. Miss Bunting (1945)
  15. Peace Breaks Out (1946)
  16. Private Enterprise (1947)
  17. Love Among the Ruins (1948)
  18. The Old Bank House (1949)
  19. County Chronicle (1950)
  20. The Dukes Daughter (1951)
  21. Happy Return (1952)
  22. Jutland Cottage (1953)
  23. What Did it Mean? (1954)
  24. Enter Sir Robert (1955)
  25. Never Too Late (1956)
  26. A Double Affair (1957)
  27. Close Quarters (1958)
  28. Love at All Ages (1959)
  29. Three Score and Ten (With: C.A. Lejeune) (1961)

Standalone Novels In Publication Order

  1. Ankle Deep (1933)
  2. Trooper to the Southern Cross (1934)
  3. The Grateful Sparrow (1935)
  4. O, These Men, These Men (1935)
  5. Coronation Summer (1937)

Non-Fiction Books In Publication Order

  1. Three Houses (1931)
  2. Tribute for Harriette (1936)

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Angela Thirkell Books Overview

High Rising

In High Rising, Mrs. Morland, a widowed author, must attend to the deeper problems of country life while her son Tony drives everyone to distraction with his amazing combination of toy trains. Here Mrs. Thirkell demonstrates the characteristic style for which she is known and for which readers love her. This is fiction replete with gentle irony, grave absurdity, and urbane understatement.’You read her, relaxed and smiling, from the first word to the last.’ Chicago Sun

The Demon in the House

In The Duke’s Daughter, ordinary country pleasures provide the happenstance for the hopes and hesitations of young love. Family names familiar from earlier installments of Barsetshire series Marling and Adams, Winter and Waring, Belton and Dale populate the pages of this engaging novel, as enamored men and women find their way into each other’s hearts, culminating in one day in which three engagements are announced! To the traditional concerns of the gentry is added a fierce displeasure with intrusions of the post war government the office of ‘Red Tape and Sealing Wax’, yet this new found preoccupation does nothing to deter the onset of a happy ending for all concerned.

Wild Strawberries

A witty romp through English Country house life at its most delightfully absurd. At Rushwater House in West Barsetshire, Lady Emily Leslie and her family are entertaining an assortment of house guests, hangers on, and French monarchists. Amid a perfect welter of rapturous embraces and moonlight madness, a marriage is finally arranged. A glittering summer party provides an hilarious climax to the various intrigues.

August Folly

In August Folly, the village of Worsted is staging Hippolytus. Inevitably, the most absurd romances bloom. Boorish young Richard Tebben, just down from Oxford, falls in love with Mrs. Dean, mother of nine, whose oldest son loves Richard’s sister, who in turn loves another. And round and round it goes. Amidst a series of comic catastrophes, everyone manages to redeem themselves. Witty, snobbish, sweet, and evocative, Mrs. Thirkell s Barsetshire novels provide a bemused scrutiny of British manners in the most delightfully entertaining doses.

Summer Half

The denouement of Philip Winter’s ill begotten engagement to featherbrained Rose Birkett is enacted in full view of Southbridge School’s extended family during a holiday break. Everyone, including her parents, is rooting for Philip’s escape which occurs when Rose breaks it off as the utter dullness of being engaged overwhelms her. Along the way, we enjoy the tea party where Rose, ‘through sheer want of personality brings the talk to her own level’ and confounds her audience by insisting that Hamlet and Shakespeare are both names of plays and probably the same one.

As in many of Thirkell’s books, the characters refer to a body of literature, both classic and modern, with a casualness that would be improbable today; the assumption of a shared background and culture having been lost. The ceremony of the ‘Cleaning of the Pond’ by Lydia, Eric Swan and a much improved Tony Morland brings the holiday to a satisfactory conclusion as does a match between Kate Keith and Everard Carter.

Pomfret Towers

This novel centers around the weekend party that Alice Barton, a shy English girl, attends at Pomfret Towers, the magnificent seventeenth century home of Lord Pomfret. Alice’s mother, Mrs. Barton, has decided that now is the time that timid, home centered Alice, must learn to socialize. Alice, mustering all of her courage, agrees to join the gathering at the elegant Towers. Though painfully shy at first, Alice soon breaks out of her shell. She begins to mingle with the other young guests, develops friendships, and even falls in love. The story also portrays the competition between two mothers Phoebe’s and Alice’s, both authors. Mrs. Rivers comes up short.

Cheerfulness Breaks In

Following the social event of the summer, the marriage of Rose Birkett the county’s scatterbrain heart breaker, Fall brings WWII. The transition to war introduces unexpected elements into the Barsetshire milieu. Despite the newly somber atmosphere, evacuee children see Nurse’s ‘lust for power over babies’, nouveau riche migrs Mr. Gissings’ suspiciously shaped head, and the Mixo Lydians and their embroideries afford opportunities for snatching humor from the jaws of bleakness. The Bissells, lower middle class heads of a billeted non U school, share, with the gentry, a mutual bewilderment of values. Mrs. Morland muses on Mrs. Bissell’s business like acceptance of ‘the sinister implications of Adelina Cottage’ shared by Miss Hampton and Miss Bent. The Keith family takes center stage as Lydia cares for the estate and her ailing mother while her friends pursue nursing and other war work. The young men pursue the young ladies and wartime accelerates the usual romantic coupling for a total of five, a record even for Thirkell.

Northbridge Rectory

Bartsetshire during wartime finds Mr. Downing, Miss Pemberton, and Mrs. Turner engaged in a love triangle; a chorus of officers raucously quartered at the rectory; and village ladies with violent leanings. In Mrs. Major Spender, Thirkell offers a devastating sketch of the good natured egoist, and readers will be pleased that the less than articulate Betty finds a soulmate in Captain Copham.

Growing Up

Growing Up is the story of ladies, gentlemen, and their irrepressible children keeping the war at bay in their country town. Trying to do their part as World War II ravages Europe, Sir Harry and Lady Waring open their estate to convalescing soldiers bringing romance, drama, and subtle life lessons to the Warings’ young niece and her friends.

The Headmistress

In the midst of World War II, the Beltons of Harefield Park find themselves ‘living on overdrafts to an extent that event they found alarming.’ It seems they may have to sell the family estate for which, during wartime, there is little demand. Their prayers are answered, however, in the unlikely form of Miss Sparling, the dauntless headmistress of the recently evacuated Hoisers’ Girls’ Foundation School, who just happens to be looking for a country mansion to let. , first published in 1945 and long unavailable, is typical Thirkell: charming, witty, and refreshingly urbane.

Miss Bunting

The carefully observed separation of the old and the new social strata is upset when representatives of each come together in the sphere of Miss Bunting the governess who has molded most of the country’s upper class. Under Miss Bunting‘s tutelage, Anne, daughter of Sir Robert Fielding, renews an old school acquaintance with the daughter of Hogglestock’s successful, albeit not genteel, iron master. ‘We must move with the times,’ says the unflappable governess when Lady Fielding questions the suitability of this association. With characteristics aplomb, Miss Bunting takes girls and situation both firmly in hand and sets all things to right.

Peace Breaks Out

True to the theory that a positive change creates almost as much stress as a negative one, the outbreak of Peace is met with trepidation. The Government falls, Mr Adams contests Anne Fielding’s father for MP, and bread is not delivered somehow equivalent events. However the main action focuses on David Leslie who, at thirty nine, is still meddling with the feelings of every available young woman until Rose Bingham, of suitable age and circumstances, ‘sorts him out’, object: Matrimony. At this the logjam breaks and everyone else becomes engaged. Around the edges we encounter Mr Scratcherd the local ‘artist’ and his formidable niece who harangues him in non stop paragraphs; the continuing feud with the Palace as the Bishop’s request for a song in honour of ‘our Wonderful Red Comrades’ is countered by a hymn whose tune is that of the Russian Imperial National Anthem; and young George Halliday’s infatuation with a totally oblivious, very middle aged, Lady Graham.

Private Enterprise

When the Second World War ends, ‘the boringness of public events’ combines with continued shortages to curtail conversation in the parlors and drawing rooms of Barsetshire: there’s ‘really nothing to talk about but food.’ But happy tongues begin to wag at last when a war widow and her unmarried sister in law take up residence in a cottage at Southbridge. The young women’s arrival and the promise of romantic possibilities it carries create a delightful stir among the bachelors and matchmakers of Barsetshire society, providing a welcome distraction from the lingering privations of peacetime.

Love Among the Ruins

A cast of characters quickly gathers around the Winters, including many faces familiar from Thirkell’s earlier Barsetshire chronicles. Among the young and unattached are Charles Belton, newly hired school master at the Priory School, and his elder brother, Captain Freddy Belton of the Royal Navy; Susan Dean, the Red Cross Depot Librarian and her sister, Jessica, an actress in thrall to the theatre; Lucy Marling, and her brother Oliver.

County Chronicle

As readers of Angela Thirkell’s enticing chronicles of Barsetshire are well aware, the county itself a fictional but familiar stretch of English countryside inhabited by infatuation, endearments, and cross purposes can seem the primary character in her delightful comedies. Nowhere is this more true than in COUNTRY CHRONICLE, in which readers are reacquainted with the plaints, and passions of several members of Barsetshire society. Through a choreographed round of fetes, parties, and other occasions, Thirkell introduces a series of intrigues romantic, literary, and personal as well as a few intriguing stragers to the country houses and village lanes of BarsetshireThirkell introduces a series of intrigues romantic, literary and personal as well as a few captivating strangers to the country houses and village lanes of Barsetshire.

The Dukes Daughter

In THE DUKE’S DAUGHTER, ordinary country pleasures provide the happenstance for the hopes and hesitations of young love. Family names familiar from earlier installments of Barsetshire series Marling and Adams, Winter and Waring, Belton and Dale populate the pages of this engaging novel, as enamored men and women find their way into each other’s hearts, culminating in one day in which three engagements are announced! To the traditional concerns of the gentry is added a fierce displeasure with intrusions of the post war government the office of ‘Red Tape and Sealing Wax’, yet this new found preoccupation does nothing to deter the onset of a happy ending for all concerned.

Happy Return

Thirkell welcomes us back to the beloved precinct of Barsetshire in this novel set in the mid century. Old friends and new faces join the community conversation which ranges from Sir Cecil Waring’s plans for a home for boys of naval men killed in the war to the relocation of the Priory Preparatory School; from Charles Belton’s hesitant courtship and headlong marriage to the spoiled Clarissa Graham, and to Grace Grantley’s betrothment to Lord Lufton, with much discussion in between of gardens, dogs, and other country matters. The older generation observes the younger with affection and concern while the younger settles into its own middle age, its prospects still shadowed by the war and its aftermath. Thirkell’s marshaling of story across generations show to quote her own praise of Lady Lufton ‘all her excellent qualities to the best advantage.’

Jutland Cottage

Local gossip takes center stage with the romance between a new rector and ‘The incredibly beautiful and even more incredibly silly’ Rose Fairweather. The impoverished and unmarried Margot Phelps leads her female neighbors in a dramatic and hilarious makeover of the 40 something spinster in this tale.

What Did it Mean?

‘…
A fictional stretch of English countryside in which a large and recurring cast of characters play out in stylish and comic comfort the conversations. that determine the destiny of a community.’The plot is set spinning when the forthright and capable Lydia Merton is asked by a deputation of distinguished ladies to chair the local committee, whose charge it is to plan festivities to mark Coronation Day Queen Elizabeth II. As Thirkell wittily reveals, there’s no better place to observe the affections and jealousies, the pettiness and grace of a community and its individual members than in the hothouse of a volunteer committee. Familiar characters are woven into the narrative web as plans progess, and, as always, romance is never far from Thirkell’s sight.

Enter Sir Robert

Set against the backdrop of two of Barsetshire’s less frequented communities, this tale plays out the yearnings and hesitations of a characteristically cross purposed set of lovers. Each village is home to one of the two families whose unmarried children provide the romantic interest. As the novel ends, the hero*ine Edith eventually chooses travel over men and leaves for America.

A Double Affair

The characteristically charming 1957 installment in Angela Thirkell’s beloved series of Barsetshire novels, picks up where its predecessor, NEVER TOO LATE, leaves off. The community is all abuzz with news of the impending marriage of Herbert Choyce vicar of Hatch End and Miss Merriman who had been the long time secretary of the late Lady Emily Graham. The couple, older and wiser than the usual betrothed, are in no hurry to tie the marital knot, but the enthusiasm of their friends and neighbors sweeps them up on a rush to the altar, as all of Barsetshire’s familiar faces join in the festivities. But in the wake of the wedding, other concerns take center stage.

Close Quarters

‘When in doubt the answer’s always tea,’ sister Chiffinch sagely remarks in this penultimate novel in the Angela Thirkell series, and what reader would disagree with her? For like everything else in Thirkell’s world, even the summer is very British: ‘short, brutish, and nasty: also very cold and damp,’ and a spot of tea is just the thing to set things right. Mrs. Donald Macfadyen, formerly Margot Phelps, whose personal transformation was the subject of JUTLAND COTTAGE. Though she is thrice bereaved in a few short months, uprooted from her home and shuttled from one family to another, she nevertheless embraces a new promise of happiness before the last chapter reaches its end. It is without saying that Thirkell’s legion of devoted readers will be delighted to join her.

Love at All Ages

The last novel in Angela Thirkell’s beloved series of modern Barsetshire chronicle is a happy concoction indeed, returning readers in stylish and comic comfort to pleasant haunts in the company of a large and familiar cast of gentry and clergy. The teas and tete a tetes come fast and furious, beginning with the gathering Mrs. Morland author of the wildly popular Madame Koska mysteries convenes at her home in High Rising. Soon the attention of the entire community is drawn to the christening of the first child of Lady William Harcourt readers of previous Thirkell novels will remember her as Edith Graham, and a new life sets the stage for new Love at All Ages, just as the title promises.

Three Score and Ten (With: C.A. Lejeune)

Finished posthumously by her close friend, C. A. Lejeune, Three Score and Ten concludes the Barsetshire series with the birthday party of the hero*ine of the first novel, Laura Morland, now seventy years old, surrounded by her grown family, her literary legacy, and the same small town drama that enchanted and amused readers thirty years previously. Thirkell’s last, unfinished novel, features a host of new and old friends from the author’s beloved Barsetshire. This time out, a little boy appears to save Wiple Terrace, home of Miss Hampton and Miss Bent, from destruction. The budding romance between Lord Mellings and Lavinia Merton flowers, a past love finds Dr. Ford, and the Old Bank House provides the setting for the final scene, an all Barsetshire party.

Ankle Deep

Ankle Deep is one of Angela Thirkell’s earliest novels. With characteristic civility and sophistication, the author welcomes us into her fictional stretch of English countryside, a magical landscape spirited with good people going about the business of life, irresistibly entertaining in their determination to misunderstand each other.

Trooper to the Southern Cross

From the author of the beloved Barsetshire novels, a bracing tale of a rumbustious voyage abroad a ‘hell ship.’ First American publication.

O, These Men, These Men

O, These Men, These Men!, first published in 1935 and long out of print, is one of Angela Thirkell’s few non Barsetshire novels. Believed to be something of a roman a clef, it deftly chronicles the sorrows and renewals, the heartbreak and graduation of happiness in the life of a refined young woman who has weathered the end of an ill starred marriage.

Coronation Summer

A rarity in the Thirkell canon, this charming and witty historical novel is set in the Coronation Summer of 1838, when the young Victoria, scarcely older than the tale’s narrator, Fanny Harcourt, assumes the throne of England. The seventeen year old Fanny’s journey from her native Norfolk to London, where she takes up residence with close friend Emily Dacre and her father as chaperone in a Queen Street apartment for the six weeks of festivities surrounding Victoria’s corination, allows Thirkell a splendid opportunity to portray the excitements of the capital and its environs through unsophisticated yet sharply discerning eyes. Thirkell’s fictional experiment will surprise and delight her established fans and win her new admirers among those enchanted with Victoriana.

Three Houses

Three Houses is a winsome reminiscence of Angela Thirkell’s 1890’s childhood, in which she recalls the Three Houses which shaped her sensibility. Each house insipires her memories of its furniture, gardens, views, and literary associations including neighbors Samuel Richardson and Rudyard Kipling, her cousin. First, there is The Grange, where her grandfather, the celebrated pre Raphaelite painter Sir Edward Burne Jones, set the cultivated tone enjoyed by family and friends such as William Morris. Second is her parent’s home in Kensington Square where the young Angela was surrounded by a bright world of neighbors and acquaintances. The third, at the heart of Thirkell’s reminiscences, is North End House in Rottingdean the Burne Jones’s seaside retreat. Here, her grandmother was the presiding genius. Three Houses offers up a childhood world of imaginative license, where the author and her playmates were free to engage in countless flights of fancy. In its deft, confident style Thirkell’s devoted readers will find much that points the way to the fictional world the author would later create in Barsetshire County.

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