Albion
Published on 14. May 2026
Book
Paperback/Softback
368 pages
978-1-4059-6673-3 (ISBN)
Description
THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER FROM THE AUTHOR OF EXPECTATION
'Hope breathes fresh thinking into the dusty corners and overgrown hedges of the English country house dilemma' The Times
'Superb ... Anna Hope engages, head-on, with some of the most urgent and challenging issues facing the world today, and transforms them into spellbinding family drama' Jonathan Coe
'Beautiful . . . As provocative as it is tender' Miranda Cowley Heller, author of The Paper Palace
The Brooke family are gathering in their eighteenth-century ancestral home - at the heart of a thousand acres of English countryside - to bury Philip: husband, father and the blinding sun around which they have all orbited for as long as they can remember.
They must grapple with their shared grief as well as their shared inheritance. Each of his children is adamant that their father has given them his blessing, and none are willing to back down, as dreams of rewilding the English countryside clash with a vision of a psychedelic haven for the super-rich.
But as they debate the future of the land, a stranger arrives bearing a truth that will fracture all the dreams on which they've built their lives.
'The English country house novel reimagined for our times ... Exceptionally well-drawn' Claire Fuller, author of Unsettled Ground
'A book that asks important questions about legacy - familial, historical and global - and which seeks to answer them with delicate insight and beautiful prose' Elizabeth Day
'Hauntingly beautiful . . . This is a novel I will return to again and again' Louisa Adjoa Parker
'Albion balances the reality of who the English were against the hope of who we might become' Richard Beard, author of The Day That Went Missing
'Hope breathes fresh thinking into the dusty corners and overgrown hedges of the English country house dilemma' The Times
'Superb ... Anna Hope engages, head-on, with some of the most urgent and challenging issues facing the world today, and transforms them into spellbinding family drama' Jonathan Coe
'Beautiful . . . As provocative as it is tender' Miranda Cowley Heller, author of The Paper Palace
The Brooke family are gathering in their eighteenth-century ancestral home - at the heart of a thousand acres of English countryside - to bury Philip: husband, father and the blinding sun around which they have all orbited for as long as they can remember.
They must grapple with their shared grief as well as their shared inheritance. Each of his children is adamant that their father has given them his blessing, and none are willing to back down, as dreams of rewilding the English countryside clash with a vision of a psychedelic haven for the super-rich.
But as they debate the future of the land, a stranger arrives bearing a truth that will fracture all the dreams on which they've built their lives.
'The English country house novel reimagined for our times ... Exceptionally well-drawn' Claire Fuller, author of Unsettled Ground
'A book that asks important questions about legacy - familial, historical and global - and which seeks to answer them with delicate insight and beautiful prose' Elizabeth Day
'Hauntingly beautiful . . . This is a novel I will return to again and again' Louisa Adjoa Parker
'Albion balances the reality of who the English were against the hope of who we might become' Richard Beard, author of The Day That Went Missing
Reviews / Votes
Hope breathes fresh thinking into the dusty corners and overgrown hedges of the English country house dilemma - without telling the reader what to think ... I closed Albion with a delicious sense of uncertainty * Sunday Times * At once a sumptuous family drama and state-of-the-nation novel, it's a triumphant read * The i, best books out in May * Albion is exquisitely put together, with a tight structure and richly drawn characters * Literary Review * There are shades of both Succession and Saltburn at play here, with Albion promising more of the emotional acuity that Anna Hope wielded so well in 2019's Expectation * Independent - The best books to look out for in 2025 * A superb novel deftly woven around themes of class, national identity and environmental collapse. In Albion Anna Hope engages, head-on, with some of the most urgent and challenging issues facing the world today, and transforms them into spellbinding family drama * Jonathan Coe, author of Middle England * Anna Hope's beautiful new novel Albion explores the complexities of family, trauma, nature, human nature, landscape and escape in language that is as provocative as it is tender * Miranda Cowley Heller, author of The Paper Palace * Her finest to date...With shades of Brideshead, as well as Elizabeth Jane Howard's memorable Cazalet Chronicles, Albion is a welcome addition to the body of literature centred around inherited wealth, ancestral homes, and difficult family dynamics * John Boyne, Irish Times * If you like dysfunctional families and grand English country houses - who doesn't, frankly? people in idyllic settings having unenviable times is so compelling - then this is for you * India Knight, HOME substack * The English country house novel re-imagined for our times: an exceptionally well-drawn portrait of a battling family, which also astutely wrestles with the issues around rewilding, inheritance, and colonialism * Claire Fuller, author of Unsettled Ground * A book that asks important questions about legacy - familial, historical and global - and which seeks to answer them with delicate insight and beautiful prose * Elizabeth Day *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Product notice
Paperback (UK-B)
Dimensions
Height: 193 mm
Width: 128 mm
Thickness: 29 mm
Weight
260 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-4059-6673-3 (9781405966733)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Person
ANNA HOPE is the internationally prizewinning and bestselling author of Wake, The Ballroom, Expectation and The White Rock. She studied at Oxford University and RADA and her novels have been translated into over 20 languages. Expectation is currently being adapted for the screen by Clemence Poesy and Haut et Court films in Paris. She lives in Sussex with her family.