Books to Read If You Like Downton Abbey
Downton Abbey is the popular TV series which has started a renewed interest in the English upper class and how they lived in the early twentieth century.
The trouble is of course that this is an original series, its not an adaption of a novel. So if you have watched all the series and specials, twice – what is a Downton Abbey fan to do?
For me the obvious answer was to look for books that were similar to Downton Abbey.
Luckily I found quite a number, and am not happily reading my way through a long list of “Downton-esque” books. If you’re interested too I’d definitely recommend checking out some of the following:
Elizabeth and Her German Garden by Elizabeth von Arnim
An autobiographical of an Australian who married a Prussian aristocrat before World War 1.
Lady Amina and the Real Downton Abbey by Fiona, Countess of Carnavon
Written by the current “Lady of the House” of Highclere- the home where Downton Abbey was filmed. This story about an earlier Countess may well have inspired Julian Fellowes, the writer of Downton
Below Stairs: The Classic Kitchen Maid’s Memoir by Marget Powell . Published in the late 1960′s and now re-published this is the autobiographical story from the other side – the author was a maid in large London houses in the early twentieth century.