"Why do we like reading about houses? British literature, from its earliest incarnations, is filled with thinking, writing, and imagining houses in ways that betray a particular consciousness of house and home. Whether it presents us with scenes from the palace scullery, the penthouse living room, or between the thin walls of the apartment block, the house in fiction will offer what it always has: a million windows onto the lives of others ..."
That's House of Fiction: From Pemberley to Brideshead, Great British Houses in Literature and Life by Phyllis Richardson, published a few days ago, and a welcome addition to my tbr pile.
"From the dark fantasies of Horace Walpole's Otranto - inspired by his own 'little Gothic castle' at Strawberry Hill - to modern takes on the English country house by Kazuo Ishiguro and Ian McEwan, Phyllis Richardson guides us on a journey through history to examine how authors' personal experiences helped to shape the homes that have become icons of English literature.
We discover how Virginia Woolf's love of Talland House in Cornwall is palpable in To the Lighthouse, just as the idyllic charm of Howards End mirrors E.M. Forster's childhood home at Rooksnest. We encounter Evelyn Waugh plotting Charles Ryder's return to Brideshead having been a frequent guest at Madresfield Court, and Jane Austen drinking 'too much wine' in the lavish ballroom of a Hampshire manor house.
Drawing on historic sources, authors' biographies, letters, diaries and the novels themselves, House of Fiction opens the doors to some of the most celebrated houses in literature, both real and imagined. It takes us back into the stories they inspired, while offering candid glimpses of the writers who brought these houses to life."
