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A Countess Below Stairs |
Author: Eva Ibbotson
Published: 2007-05-10 |
List price: $8.99
Our price: $8.99
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As of: January 06th, 2009 05:36:27 AM
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Customer comments on this selection.
 A lovely fairytale romance.
I first read this novel in the early 1980s. I was delighted to see it re-issued, having lent and lost my original copy.
This is not a "paperback original" sensuous romance. This romance will not please you if you are expecting pages of sexual foreplay and the physical intimacy of a current day romance novel. Save your money, wrong book.
This is the story of a young Russian aristocrat, Anna Grazinsky, in the year 1919. Her fatherless family has fled the Russian Revolution and are living in England, guests of Anna's former Governess.
Money is tight. Anna, equipped with "The Domestic Servant's Compendium" has surreptitiously found temporary work as a housemaid at the Earl of Westholme's estate, Mersham.
The Great War has changed the order of society. Factories pay better than serving the local Gentry. Death duties, mortgages and taxes have made the survival of the great estate houses precarious. Unlikely Anna is hired simply due to the dearth of applicants. Anna begins her new arduous life below stairs.
The Heir, Rupert, has recovered from his war wounds and is returning home to await the arrival of his wealthy, beautiful fiancee, Muriel.
Unfortunately, Muriel's personality is less attractive than her bank balance. Graceless Muriel intends, through her marriage, to ford the divide between the rich merchant-class and the aristocracy. She has very distinct ideas on how the aristocracy should live.
This is a very interesting romance, with a lot of history, humour and sympathy for all of the characters that interact at Mersham. All of the characters are distinct with their individual foibles and strengths. I enjoyed all of them from cowardly, vain Dr Lightbody to generous, warm Hannah Rabinovitch.
There is a very clever look at the popular beliefs and conflicts of the early 20th century. Everything from Spiritualism, Eugenics, Suffragists, White Russian Princes driving taxicabs, Conscientious Objectors, down to the significance of a white feather. The attention to period detail adds to the story. The reader is immersed in the various concerns of 1919. From England's economic instability, to bobbed hair, from Anti-semitism and shell-shocked soldiers to the Hero's interest in archeological areas of study.
Since this is a romance, everyone comes by their just desert. The journey to that just desert is very entertaining. Maybe not totally believable but that is the nature of a fairytale.
Recommended.
 Yawn
Anna is a Countess of Russia who is driven from her luxurious home to find safety in England. Betrayed by a nursemaid the family entrusted with their precious jewels and wealth, Anna, her mother, and younger brother are left penniless in a foreign land living off the generosity of a favorite English governess. Anna, determined to not be a burden, finds work as a lower housemaid of an Earl, who is recently returned from the war. Anna wins over the trust of the household servants, as well as the Earl, but the Earl's nasty fiancée doesn't like the maid who "acts above her station." Anna and the Earl fall in love, but obviously have a few obstacles to overcome.
This story could have really been so much more than what has been written. Anna is flawless. She has been spoiled by her adoring parents, and her own father says of her "I may spoil her, but is she spoilt?" There is nothing interesting about her--she did everything correct as a child, as a young aristocrat during the Russian Revolution, and as a emigrée. Even the Earl is practcally without faults, other than his stupidity for getting engaged to a awful women who only wants a title. Even all of the Earl's friends seem perfect and accepting, where the fiancée is flawed and prejudiced. It's like all the characters have 21st century views while the fiancée is the only one who is acting like someone during the early 1900's. The only persons of interest are the fiancée and her mentor, only because they are doing something other than being perfect, but I even tired of them because they, too, were so stereotypical.
And of this "Forbidden Love." No where in the story do you see or feel like Anna and the Earl start to fall in love. No where can you see how it was conceivable. No where. It was just thrown at you.
It felt like the author was trying to have a cast of characters all inter-connected like an Austen novel, but it just didn't work. In the end I did enjoy reading this story, but I'm not likely to pick it up to read again.
Angieville: A COUNTESS BELOW STAIRS
What wordy, frothy fun Ibbotson's books are. Perfect going on a trip books. In fact, reading them makes me wish I was going somewhere, as her heroines always seem to be off somewhere new and exciting and exotic. But since I am not going anywhere (exotic or otherwise) in the near future, getting lost in them has proved a wonderful balm for the blues.
Anna is a Russian countess whose family is forced to flee their wealth and their home after her father is killed in the Russian Revolution. Completely displaced, living in a flat in London with her former governess, she determines to support her ailing mother and younger brother by taking a job as a maid at the country estate of the Earl of Westerholme. Rupert, the young Earl, is recently home from the war, wounded and desperately trying to save the destitute estate he didn't want to inherit in the first place. You see, he promised his older brother just before he died that he would do anything in his power to keep the old place afloat. Ah, those pesky deathbed promises. They always come back to haunt you...
To avoid selling, Rupert proposes to a beautiful, very wealthy nurse he meets while recovering in hospital. Muriel is gorgeous, rich, and oh, just by the way, a passionate believer in eugenics--the philosophy of selective breeding in order to achieve a master race. That's right. The woman is Evil Incarnate and Poor Rupert doesn't know! As Muriel sinks her claws deeper and deeper into Westerholme, attempting to dispose of all of its lovely, offbeat, misfit inhabitants, Rupert and Anna strike up a friendship. Not fooled for a second by her maid disguise, Rupert is struck by how much Anna seems to love his home and family, how different it all looks when seen through her eyes. And, indeed, everyone from the other servants to the Earl's giant hound is enamored of Anna. But the path gets thornier and thornier as the wedding draws closer and pride and honor get in the way of everyone's happiness.
Ibbotson's books remind me of a cross between Anne of Green Gables, 100th Anniversary Edition and Jane Eyre (Penguin Classics), with a dash of Mary Stewart thrown in for good measure. A COUNTESS BELOW STAIRS has a wedding scene that had me laughing out loud. Best of all, though, it contains a truly wonderful rant delivered by the leading lady whilst standing in front of a formal dinner party, clutching a basket of rolls to her chest. Brilliant.
It also contains the best last line of Ibbotson's books yet.
 Forbidden romance
This book is a truly intriguing and delightful historical fiction book. It all started with an interesting character named Anna who was a countess in Russia. During the Russian revolution Anna and her family left the country. Instead of moping around while the family hid in England, Anna says one of the craziest things. Anna had wanted to move in to an English household to be a maid. Anna's nanny had told her that this was insane but Anna did not listen and Anna moved to Western Holm. While in the English house hold Anna had hidden her secrete but falls deeply in love with the Earl of Western Holm. As he had invited gusts and Anna had run into the Earl, Anna's feelings for the Earl deepened. Since they where two different social classes they could never be together. The intensity of Anna's love grew and then intensified. This truly made an interesting book with the challenges of love and social classes. The challenges, the drama and the distance that a person will go for the sake of true love makes this book truly well written, making it truly one of the best teen youth books I have ever read.
Just wonderful!
What a beautiful book. Rich in historical context and vibrant, three-dimentional characters, this book is a treasure appropriate for any agegroup!
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