Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Habits of the House
    Habits of the House
    Habits of the House
    Ebook372 pages12 hours

    Habits of the House

    By Fay Weldon

    3/5

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    For fans of Downton Abbey comes a ravishing portrait of the late 19th Century family from one of Britain's best-loved authors.

    Fay Weldon's new novel takes us inside the lives of an aristocratic household in the last three months of the nineteenth century. It's a time of riot and confusion, social upheaval, war abroad and shortage of money. Tea gowns are still laced with diamonds; there are still nine courses at dinner, but bankruptcy looms for the Dilbernes.

    Whilst the Earl, gambler and man about town, must seek a new post in government; his wife Lady Isobel's solution is to marry off their son Arthur to a wealthy heiress, and without delay. But how? It's the end of the season, and choices are few. There's Minnie O'Brien from Chigaco – rich enough, but daughter of a stockyard baron, and with a vulgar mother and dubious past. Hardly suitable...!

    Fay Weldon tells this tale of restraint and desire, manners and morals with wit and sympathy – if no small measure of mischief – as young Minnie and Arthur, thrown together by their parents, strive to determine their own destiny.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBloomsbury Publishing
    Release dateJul 17, 2012
    ISBN9781908800831
    Habits of the House
    Author

    Fay Weldon

    After hard times and odd jobs as a lone parent, Fay Weldon became one of the top advertising copywriters of her generation. She moved to TV drama (writing the pilot episode of the iconic series Upstairs Downstairs) then turned to novels – including the classic The Life and Loves of a She Devil and the Booker-shortlisted Praxis. Fay was made a CBE for services to literature and taught Creative Writing at Bath Spa University.

    Read more from Fay Weldon

    Related to Habits of the House

    Titles in the series (3)

    View More
    View More

    Related ebooks

    Historical Fiction For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Home to ROOST

      Jan 11, 2022

      Home to ROOST
      11 min read

    • Article

      Friend Or Foe?

      Aug 24, 2023

      Sitting on the grass beside my girlfriend Grace, I spotted a familiar face approaching from across the park. ‘Can I join you?’ Chelsea, then 17, smiled, plonking herself down. It was March 2018 and I’d been with Grace, then 16, for six months. I was

      4 min read

    • Article

      Lamport Hall

      Mar 7, 2024

      Lamport Hall
      6 min read

    • Article

      City Of A Scandal

      Jan 4, 2023

      City Of A Scandal
      5 min read

    • Article

      Blenheim Palace

      Jan 5, 2023

      Blenheim Palace
      6 min read

    • Article

      The Family That Shaped Camilla

      Mar 22, 2023

      The Family That Shaped Camilla
      8 min read

    • Article

      The Family That Shaped Camilla

      Mar 22, 2023

      The Family That Shaped Camilla
      8 min read

    • Article

      NANDOR FODOR & THE TALKING MONGOOSE

      Sep 7, 2023

      Throughout the 1930s, the world’s newspapers were full of incredible stories about Gef, a ‘talking mongoose’ or ‘man-weasel’ who had allegedly appeared in the home of a peculiar family living in a somewhat dilapidated Isle of Man farmhouse. Gef was s

      11 min read

    • Article

      Noble Ambitions By Adrian Tinniswood Review – Classy Tour Of The Country House

      Oct 18, 2021

      When the market for stately homes all but vanished in the years after the second world war, desperate measures were required. Boom! “If you need to dynamite a country house, do it early on a Monday morning,” instructed the Marquess of Normanby, thoug

      4 min read

    • Article

      Historical Fiction...

      Sep 2, 2021

      By Anna Abney Duckworth, £14.99 London in 1665: the Civil Wars still cast a long shadow over the country, even though Charles II has been restored to the throne. Alethea Hawthorne is hoping to return one day to her family’s ancestral home, Measham H

      1 min read

    • Article

      Erddig

      Sep 7, 2023

      Erddig
      5 min read

    • Article

      Part Three - The Engraver And Printer

      May 14, 2021

      It was now late evening and Noella tentatively tapped an impeccably glossy front door to a grand terraced house in Barclay Square. Her excitement of the day, and the thrill of meeting Count Ferrari, had evaporated into a weary need for food and a bed

      4 min read

    • Article

      Victoria's Secrets

      Apr 3, 2024

      Victoria's Secrets
      4 min read

    • Article

      A Special Relationship

      Mar 20, 2024

      A Special Relationship
      5 min read

    • Article

      ‘The End of the Day’: Featured Fiction from Bill Clegg

      Sep 30, 2020

      An excerpt from a novel Kirkus called "A moody, atmospheric domestic drama with a mystery novel somewhere in its family tree." The post ‘The End of the Day’: Featured Fiction from Bill Clegg appeared first on The Millions.

      12 min read

    • Article

      A Day With The Duchess

      Dec 9, 2022

      A Day With The Duchess
      5 min read

    • Article

      Winston Churchill

      Feb 5, 2020

      Winston Churchill
      8 min read

    • Article

      A Grand Plan

      May 21, 2020

      A Grand Plan
      3 min read

    • Article

      Lullingstone Castle

      Jul 6, 2023

      Lullingstone Castle
      6 min read

    • Article

      Landladies Under Attack

      Feb 17, 2022

      Landladies Under Attack
      1 min read

    • Article

      Very Hampstead, very Kingsley Amis

      Oct 29, 2020

      I HEARD THESE WORDS in the Flask Bookshop in Flask Walk, Hampstead — which I owned and ran from 1975 until 1988 — while slumped in the back room on my leather swivel chair, quite as usual, smoking a pipe and reading: I was always reading. It was a un

      10 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Habits of the House

    3/5

    85 ratings13 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 2/5
      Book received from Goodreads Giveaways. I have had this book for awhile now and I've tried to read it several times. I found the audiobook at my library and decided to give it a chance. I think it is much better listened to than read. I gave it two stars due to how many times I've picked it up and had to put it down. It is the first in a series but I don't believe I'll be reading/listening to the rest. I will admit the parts focusing on the servants of the house are much more interesting than the main family. If you're missing Downton Abbey give it a shot.
    • 3/5
      I'm not quite sure which style Fay Weldon was aiming for, when writing her Love and Inheritance trilogy, but the result is a sort of smutty Upstairs Downstairs (the original Downton Abbey). The third person narrative mocks the fin de siecle setting - laughing at steam engines and social etiquette in equal measure - and the characters are played like rejects from P.G. Wodehouse. The Earl of Dilberne loses a considerable investment - of his wife's money - in a South African gold mine, and attempts to restore the family fortune by marrying good-natured son Arthur off to an American heiress, Minnie. His daughter Rosina is the stock-in-trade feminist, tall and bluff, who once argued her grandfather into an early grave. They are all very quirky but none too original, while the plot meanders along, establishing the scene, for 300 pages. I just couldn't warm to the style - the characters are not taken seriously enough to care for, and the story isn't eventful enough to carry the comic, slightly sneering tone of the narrative. A resounding 'meh' - I won't be paying for the honour of parts two and three.
    • 4/5
      If you love Downton Abbey this is the series for you. Entertaining but nothing deep.
    • 4/5
      If you love Downton Abbey this is the series for you. Entertaining but nothing deep.
    • 3/5
      With limited time to experience maximum reading enjoyment. I finally abandoned this rather flat, lifeless book. Sometimes I'm just not in the mood for this stuff.
    • 1/5
      I really, really tried to like this book but I ended up giving up after 140 pages. I'm not sure why I didn't like it; perhaps it was because it seemed like it was rambling and getting nowhere fast, or because it kept jumping from one person to another to another and I found it hard to follow. Whatever the reason, I just couldn't get into it and I decided I have too many other books waiting to be read to waste any more of my time on something I didn't care for. Usually I like historical fiction and British fiction, but this one just didn't make it.
    • 4/5
      Fun hiatus read for a Downton Abbey fan, in fact, I had a hard time not picturing some of the characters as Downton characters. Looking forward to reading the next two in the series.
    • 3/5
      The Earl of Dilberne is in desperate need of cash to save his estate from his gambling debts and bad investments. He and his wife Isobel, decide the best way to raise money is to marry off their son Arthur to a rich woman. They find Minnie, an American from a prominent Chicago slaughterhouse family who despite her rough background and scandalous past, is witty, smart and refined. She and Arthur hit it off, although Arthur remains attached to his paid "mistress." This book, by the creator of Upstairs, Downstairs, is obviously aimed squarely at the Dowton Abbey crowd. It's a lightning-fast read and a lot of fun, although not nearly as meaty as the series we all love. Also, the tone is much more jaundiced and a great deal bawdier. So, Downton Abbey it's not, but it stands on its own as a good read.
    • 5/5
      I received this book as part of the GoodReads FirstReads program and it was one that I was fairly giddy to have won. As a fan of historical fiction generally and "Upstairs Downstairs" specifically I was more than ready to enjoy this one.On the good side the book gives us a wonderfully open portrayal of the behavior of the landed class at the time. No secret is too dark, no behavior too perverse to be placed on display. We're introduced to some of the notable personages of the time and the scene is littered with tidbits of historical amusement from the Boer Wars to steam powered autos. Weldon also treats us to a myriad of period vernacular that causes us Midwestern types to scramble for our dictionaries. If nothing else it's worth reading just for the language. Organizationally the book's short (almost tiny) chapters are each date-headed and titled helping the reader keep track of a sometimes tangled chronology. This is the sort of book you can take in small bites if you need to and come back without losing much of the thread of the narrative.On the other side, there's just not quite as much story as one would expect from a period piece. Readers who anticipate a Classical level of detail from this novel are bound to be disappointed. It is a novel very much boiled down to its nucleus, a traveling sideshow rather than a museum piece. Additionally, while our author uses some amusing bits of language they do at times seem forced and inconsistently timed. Her characters whip out a colorful phrase about every 20 pages and then revert to current standard English until it is once again time to find an appropriate period idiom to insert. As the current vernacular so aptly puts it, "go big or go home"; if your characters drawl along in Cockney rhyming slang in chapter 1 then they'd best do so for the duration lest purists like me complain about it in online reviews.To summarize, Weldon's novel is a cute period piece but it's a period piece written for the masses. Bibliophiles who have come to this novel as a modern break from perusing Austen would be advised to understand that this is a novel written for an audience less accustomed to the complexities of Classical literature. Readers are also advised to take a page of notes on the dramatis personae as they are introduced. Personally I had some difficulty sorting out the rather homogeneous nomenclature of the various characters involved.
    • 3/5
      Fay Weldon's writing is always intelligent, witty and funny, and this novel has very good moments. But I agree with the previous reviewers who said that it's a minor work. I'd rather re-read one of Weldon's classic books, such as "Down Among the Women," than the planned sequels to this one.
    • 2/5
      This was disappointing. I think the author is inviting us to join her in sneering at the stupidity, self-centeredness and weakness of all the characters, upstairs and downstairs. Unfortunately, unless a book compensates for this with some wit and/or some kind of a moral center, it is doomed to be unsatisfying. An opportunity wasted.
    • 2/5
      Downton Crabby:Crabby is definitely how I felt trying to slog through this pastiche of a late Victorian/Edwardian class drama. The premise sounded entertaining - another Downton Abbey/Upstairs Downstairs society novel, the drama of the season, a marriage of convenience, the lives of the staff supporting the drama above-stairs. What's not to like?Everything, really.I was put off within a few pages. The characters, both upstairs and downstairs, are obnoxious and unlikeable. The descriptions of the unclothed bodies of both adult children in the earliest chapters and the sexual advances between maid and master were jarring to someone expecting an authentic period drama in Victorian style. It reads like Henry James fan fiction! Though this is touted as 'the thing' for people craving a class drama fix while waiting for season 4 of DA, it misses the essence of what DA is: a gentle, satisfying melodrama with LIKABLE characters. Fay Weldon's creations fail to evoke anything other than disdain or mild revulsion in the reader, at least in my experience with this novel. I didn't care if the family survived, I didn't care about the marriage prospects of Arthur or Rosina, and I didn't care about their parents. The downstairs staff was wooden and uninteresting as well. After forcing myself through half of this book, I finally threw up my hands and admitted defeat. And then read some Henry James.
    • 4/5
      Ever since reading (and watching the TV series) ‘The Forsyte Saga’ in my teens I’ve had a passion for late Victorian/Edwardian British stories. I was very excited to receive a copy of ‘Habits of the House’ set in 1899. The story revolves around the household of the Earl of Dilberne. He himself is deeply in debt, from both business ventures gone badly and from trying to keep up with his friend, the spendthrift Price of Wales; his wife, Isobel, daughter of a tradesman who brought money to the marriage, spends on clothing and dinners. His daughter, Rosina, spends her time going to lectures of the leftist kind and despises the moneyed class while enjoying the advantages it offers. His son and heir Arthur cares nothing for business or politics, freely spending on clothing, his mistress, and his steam powered automobiles. When the latest venture, a gold mine in Africa, is taken and flooded by the Boers, bankruptcy looms. The earl and his lady’s reaction to this is that their children (in their 20s) must marry for money. Everyone has their own opinion on how this should be accomplished, including the staff of servants who have a surprising influence on the lives of their employers. What follows is a tangled web of greed, bigotry, and lies. There are no blameless characters here, but neither are there any monsters. These are all just flawed human beings, most of whom are fairly decent at heart. They are muddling through their lives, regretting their pasts, and trying to puzzle out what kind of future the want. These are not particularly deep characters; they are rather sketchy. I enjoyed the book. Despite the unusual layout – a lot of very short chapters, each devoted to a character’s actions in a short period of time- sometimes as little as an hour- it reads fast. The entire book takes place over the span of a little less than two months- but the first 86 pages is devoted to a single day. At the beginning I did have trouble at times figuring out which character was which. There is enough description to set the reader firmly in the era. Standing outside of the time, the author skewers the manners and prejudices of the time. Is it great literature? No. Is it good enough that I’ll be seeking out the next two volumes? Yes.

    Book preview

    Habits of the House - Fay Weldon

    5 dbook_preview_excerpt.html}۶ƑݒJjZTZ֚$$S@RHP_}c)'<__W^uѿ>_4<5-t~h~Kv85/3Ooxhʜ)K6{sݡs㽙/59va<w}~0Υ27>&&fg"GiO}>ƛwmٷgAzi\_bl[G@XVR~{~Ko<9ec9.oyR#Hʽf&.؇nH.%ǁ~oR8G6>NukvOHBNp0twy01SuC.џb\rQO\L >46d.5+F,pkg]SU\8 h We!EK8Cw1\3\o|&1zpqxKK ڲm*}93 :Z_ϲu=T}jV\а ~ע>Bڐ&.On52, Bmvni| `%v=^_?,${.W~80Ft3xH&r5'q-xb1nsD^/O[JRsy≗j9%tib-֩/g{( YuizN-Ki?C迆i{x# Sxz1B7oULQ>RoD5V]{| {  |-J _G[,-BC8P,@-Rj 9Q.vG[Ȉ Ecz3]hG+@]_X]FI?!ė[7CJWwH5vs.Qϵj'#WL =mJ;>#u?dJY Mea/C. a}P$ \$gFTI1&FpϑC ,>amxtQZZScl`\{qK'wiNOyM0hT|[kO R*7kHpGx s^SlhܗS7w-uP8P$hٴfc>bˡjRB6B̴3A=D%OOuhbሮ7R*\41жa#*͐Bo~;$ Pbȑn< n]}&(K$!O3DyE`:@p%#K0)ZlD-=Pfn#򆎋FDR@eo^R4C:ӝ@GfvF/#y&'W_K<5{/UpWLܹnݹ~!M$*'bW/O\HFCgl.'un\![=uLw]ޠ ^}*O{S'rB6W܊ bͽ@nْb>x &?FB-gWךxճ~œO: .p !1Źy}3yBn]{D ФZ;)LZƉ9hLE9ZZa,!}ޕ:ڠe9H8^7?ɧ|%U$eJo $#35j2 O'wu(߀88,oR %-9G/(ZJʭda Ԟ<'yr938w71Sf.|6'QwSЖVݓ %Jʬ0_'EKεȕPsaD$J%+1T &'cb^#UB~oձAGraZÐT1 oJ?0DEj'wmpvZ Վ];.YQh/"ds}-Yw}HJ`]swE/O>kUxtS4]rnit( Э|%㖦F-ԅQN؋܉YήP|xoJ^WvIfl,47Ywhkp^ %=xb]{վz-sQS{!^d"q QaZufXLOۘۻ*K;\"f J6hH7G`t\M1+tYvY>VIO~XCD=L}oto_nLn+KDϵ*\ [zAUvwE~%1BQ渶4k+d2i|e =;MxT5ܼf9ҋQSNs! )s5XEy`ߚ<Ha;ćRw?~-UPZkR*$;Q >{OA:$ 5F iw?Y͐z6^ːkT8 tP\6BeU]ETq,>iɼ|' =Β< ӱ"6,C1SASP^ۍ/ojr|ȫS}BX A6rZen+tt1ܽg0զRzIX Dcw*nq.qOɪ5ԅS_+x;-1z%Qc]rD-^7[{"Sc>JK›1Qxk""GJ4PtSwȁ"֓_ yl3GY^LOUD;RNZ}O,vžZ\sa(.VUˮ&7*y7m>wl4Hߜ.Hf'o"<~vVv0bҽ'7;퇉a-C$o+| 2$BHT$~$a9pVf7]CB;.x ׄQvSQ6spu8|bDCr{arƘ/(]푳Q), kYo۵!qwM-].[=Czs("$ͺG'Lj"M$ IO)[.ݨ`muRtӷ{FGr߲fvGTV&PD֑S$./B}[UIa}hŰK#e+Yuî%Z,Yb8:>簑 *\𧻓Sg*bKqtx,d0_ms%wh\5g# CJ!"K67›b661/rMFE1e8'Ӄ*2wN5#\//O+Rk?> *fe%zךxQ2Yn$>s1p+Wv)ᙷY4J<ǽ>TCc @89W7I\{ WыGM{wk9cټ͎;g'h$馏]tQi*QF1/. t:b+ha(OɔJ1U)wҔwt%<8Ɔ+3lR }R0WWk4V`vSw)7b tM3 -\Cm;Yt_*̀nE"/LmJ/čC a'SfC <2 5q_"!ϭ( zƊXEahBH-s#~h3o{! )U]E_^$ޜx)9O{&C&$++s_GQrY՗rl=Xr/D_qкD S 18Zlowgy:EmuHE;uvV!3Ɇ{Gv!Yz@KC`V8єjj֢o f9˴:>2/beͲ 4Y9w砍Gn"fD b]a]MM@ jee1[)Yn åe!]XR wca^.SY09 HҤVߦ+X%U)2j:c%CYۧMX74 cs7̳R !,NL5VULr^4֎n*3UY7әƸm>hN _4dZR[l nUװEȹf>X:^K9>}v6:ܭnqRCkf9Ok]JZt#~؅/}z 6ݏpLW/gגi( finYEUb(F|em8E%w[$cze`EUΕB7%Dեg֑P`ZFcB9i,\c: 52i}bYU9az1qъ12m;ox q`YV A+'v=ٌsx=0N_;Y@$=emc|cFw.׮V05W SN[(Dm>s`v؜y֙fqt  2V`UW."_6Sihʀ:QFj(YX;x<9ߕ]90U,`óc-;›~ !>.XkE~.Ӡ0?.Y*>,DM~ռzmZ,ՋeD~0/5j`/}MK棐62r\9W^xÓ'정R⚪£d_=Kdͨ4sφ̂lXn&;+h eK}rt:vAY^Xm[XOYx"3;hg K:! d/\O #6Ԥ2s.)mӉ9e[3uo(*~inn*K]&ixwB|1k!ouVV5m|%(J 0^>U`٥i#1L| }WW' r9>hƿnE pu|`ǝ;Al}ۉ{R>^֑3'TRNW%6Q*fcY]ʖ uϸ)[u2F5<+^`ڶ>>WNbX}Y赝+U@%xG6F8m@v6pN6RǔejP99j2UD\|تέ͹ol~1HD*`+YV-Wrj65@nXR{a'rjc^!d'3{n`͜0gG%++W?4B\N'PAQDayq Іd_doqq{ؘJ۵qL,]kY#9"ʁVJr*x ϊGq3 fu=}4+d༝-\kny`]g[7:#q@(Ej%bё˾l3+_Fk9c9% o][\GAp@j:8G6Gj5hCSIԬU]z.Z,43{ ojG^ҟk\Hk7ja7?={VJYU(,FB{:ЄK-''Bd0糥h wbFg clکJ$\Y'uzT( )Ǖj{G urp~\Ɠ9aTJAHÕ k:DYtݚn|zNX9ډMc\A60op|泬*w1d5ntiu Tꍅ+iK30\'7xk3~VyL_vHK#,  :>*\8UZwr,J-UdBoq^GLmG5F|$cWf{=1c.,}u ȏXѸ-{Ď/zԊko+.'Z}KX٦;{DT}yܪ8vSU^/ΫlFr~/Vqߧӯ9#:4+-ç~NYlirX'Cס~A5`}26UYӥٹHx΃ Q# &߯=znZqC[RV|tTz@5xɌ0kʰ=C>#zh;Nmtq G㇇8QY~e]S}USWNnope~"pfR(s:׃(<gVJj\É$+=w #99wqԟ8F #?Re)+5m&?>>ʗF+C@1 i'Uaan4c<V]sK\yccd3[瑉K o8hhJgEl$I(A5oͥ9b.e#AdPo}e@uuCF$W yʁ]AbǕ|ԉ/y8EuHxJ#+| 2bmyS.$vqmmCYyBgOFAUwBsL$+G֙/GP>?dW3NSElĢܷ<ޢ U=+BY-uS&>9RVj\k'D^ esw/5Þ@aU.騇qD+6&+g#1:NV(CmE`Q˜X9-ckmBO#p$J>Uh6rg7-yfc Y!m~xEn6)B G49DMYd]3jtRsd=b5w]G_mQ]7ai)YK+:I.l)6X_KZ:Wַ}M Zx+nx77;kFt$uUAޓS@lT"OE6FȋJ~OcͰ0m8yCa_2gu, h3|@jLF}^Svl\OyFņyDëuXKn{ڷTjED~\홻4㏙ePH'f-m7H=/#."T_P9P<+CغgXº'Ċ/x}k@ϒ="h\zjc!#:Gx//iط _6̧hV ,8ga^쮪"8Ė}gG6# HȂq 6(`U˂ة:1oP],/~*9[}]Y~* 9:kn@Z'. ,ZdG-cg: "kc|N1iz(Y͘~;I(bt^f*9@NpGurt0^P2mY"KDjTU2S?r,yqr=l=3U w//:bbBӸ;9*^pmd=3j.ꇷr}mx4i#6V+/|zwױO6u9ةu3yPIBQǖ8Ĭ"r  D1iw%<-tr,f}f%?ma'0J֣?k`F}M(nZ˰45u֟F~4ؑ{s r{Q@1hϻF+w %!NZ~0e+^Wj|jugئs T"4mWF+H;cض H?gKV^eHi;3Xw֭z^qvښzŒ!>
    Enjoying the preview?
    Page 1 of 1