Servants
A Downstairs View of Twentieth-century Britain
Will be published approx. on 12. September 2013
Book
Paperback/Softback
416 pages
978-1-4088-4270-6 (ISBN)
Description
'Hugely enjoyable' - Kathryn Hughes, Guardian
Glorious ... Full of eyebrow-raising and laughter-inducing vignettes' - Daily Telegraph
Servants is the social history of the last century through the eyes of those who served. From the butler, the footman, the maid and the cook of 1900 to the au pairs, cleaners and childminders who took their place seventy years later, a previously unheard class offers a fresh perspective on a dramatic century.
Here, the voices of servants and domestic staff are at last brought to life: their daily household routines, attitudes towards their employers, and to each other, throw into sharp and intimate relief the period of feverish social change through which they lived.
Sweeping in its scope, extensively researched and brilliantly observed, Servants is an original and fascinating portrait of twentieth-century Britain; an authoritative history that will change and challenge the way we look at society.
Glorious ... Full of eyebrow-raising and laughter-inducing vignettes' - Daily Telegraph
Servants is the social history of the last century through the eyes of those who served. From the butler, the footman, the maid and the cook of 1900 to the au pairs, cleaners and childminders who took their place seventy years later, a previously unheard class offers a fresh perspective on a dramatic century.
Here, the voices of servants and domestic staff are at last brought to life: their daily household routines, attitudes towards their employers, and to each other, throw into sharp and intimate relief the period of feverish social change through which they lived.
Sweeping in its scope, extensively researched and brilliantly observed, Servants is an original and fascinating portrait of twentieth-century Britain; an authoritative history that will change and challenge the way we look at society.
Reviews / Votes
Hugely enjoyable ... a richly textured account of what it felt like to spend the decades of high modernity on your knees with a dustpan and brush ... an excellent addition to the history of domestic service in the 20th century ... Where Servants excels is in describing those placed where the older paradigms of domestic service, inherited from the late 19th century, began to break down -- Kathryn Hughes * Guardian * Delightfully well-written ... scrupulously even-handed ... Hats off to Lethbridge for so touchingly and comprehensively chronicling those lives that history, like the snootiest of employers, has neglected for so long -- Craig Brown * The Mail on Sunday * Glorious ... Full of eyebrow-raising and laughter-inducing vignettes. But what is most fascinating is Lethbridge's account of the dark side of the master-servant relationship * Daily Telegraph * Beautifully written, sparkling with insight, and a pleasure to read, Servants is social history at its most humane and perceptive. In broad terms, the world Lethbridge describes is a familiar one, but she nails it all down with the kind of detail that still has the power to astonish, outrage or amuse * Times Literary Supplement * Scholarly, thorough and vastly entertaining ... Lethbridge's style is elegant, detached and slyly witty, and her canvas sprawling and immense * Financial Times * Enthusiasts of bonnets and waistcoats will find Upstairs Downstairs or Downton Abbey all the more enjoyable after reading this nuanced and elegantly written account of the wider context. And in tracing the history of servants throughout the whole of the 20th century, Lethbridge offers a new vantage point from which to reassess British social history -- Lara Feigel * Observer * Humane, perceptive and dispassionate, Servants takes us more deeply and comprehensively than any previous account into the real world of Upstairs Downstairs -- David Kynaston Absorbing ... Lethbridge enables us to hear the voices of her subjects; she skilfully interweaves written and oral testimony ... Empathetic, wide-ranging and well-written * Spectator * Engrossing * Sunday Telegraph * Enlightening and elegantly written social history -- Joy Lo Dico * Independent on Sunday * Enthralling ... Lethbridge shows that the history of life below stairs is just as interesting as the story of life above them * Tatler * Excellent social history ... Anyone who longs to believe Downton Abbey's comforting portrayal of life below stairs will emerge from its pages disabused of such sentimental notions * Daily Mail * Thoroughly researched and tremendously entertaining ... Illustrated with a host of terrific anecdotes * Sunday Times * Meticulously researched ... It makes a grand sweep, covering a rich swathe of social history which Lethbridge unpicks with delicacy, humanity and humour ... Lethbridge shows how complex and varied the relationship between servant and master could be * The Tablet * Comprehensively reached and charmingly engaging, Servants is a sensitive, humane and penetrating insight into British society * Western Morning News * Absorbing history ... Telling their story so fully and humanely * Economist * Fascinating * Independent * The stories are reminiscent of below-stairs life as depicted in TV's Downton Abbey * Jewish Chronicle * Neither snobbish nor socialist, Lethbridge has produced a sympathetic and affectionate study, laced with invigorating anecdotes * Intelligent Life * By no means the standard Downton Abbey cash-in. Instead, a brilliantly researched and often eye-opening account of twentieth-century life below stairs * Reader's Digest * Excellent, thoroughly researched -- Paul Bailey * The Oldie * Comprehensive * Good Book Guide *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Dimensions
Height: 196 mm
Width: 128 mm
Thickness: 30 mm
Weight
330 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-4088-4270-6 (9781408842706)
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
Additional editions
E-Book
03/2013
1st Edition
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
€18.49
Available for download
Person
Lucy Lethbridge has written for a number of publications and is also the author of several children's books, one of which, Who Was Ada Lovelace?, won the 2002 Blue Peter Award for non-fiction. She is the author of Spit and Polish (2016) and Tourists, published to critical acclaim in 2022. She lives in London.