Before Lunch
Published on 5. May 2016
Book
Paperback/Softback
320 pages
978-0-349-00740-3 (ISBN)
Description
Jack Middleton likes to imagine himself a country squire. At weekends he retires to Laverings Estate with his wife, Catherine. He may be pompous, and they may seem ill-matched, but the couple are devoted to each other.
When Jack's widowed sister, Lilian, and her two stepchildren arrive to spend the summer in the neighbouring house, he dreads the intrusion to his idyll: Daphne, capable and ambitious, is too lively for his taste, whereas her brother Denis, a composer, he finds a crashing bore. But their wit and good sense charm the residents of Barchester, and they win over Lord Bond with an impromptu Gilbert and Sullivan evening. Even Jack begins to thaw.
Before long, Daphne and Lord Bond's son become attracted to each other, but each believes the other is attached to someone else. Can disaster be averted before she marries the wrong man?
First published in 1939, Before Lunch is a sparkling comedy from Angela Thirkell's much-loved classic series.
When Jack's widowed sister, Lilian, and her two stepchildren arrive to spend the summer in the neighbouring house, he dreads the intrusion to his idyll: Daphne, capable and ambitious, is too lively for his taste, whereas her brother Denis, a composer, he finds a crashing bore. But their wit and good sense charm the residents of Barchester, and they win over Lord Bond with an impromptu Gilbert and Sullivan evening. Even Jack begins to thaw.
Before long, Daphne and Lord Bond's son become attracted to each other, but each believes the other is attached to someone else. Can disaster be averted before she marries the wrong man?
First published in 1939, Before Lunch is a sparkling comedy from Angela Thirkell's much-loved classic series.
Reviews / Votes
You read her, laughing, and want to do your best to protect her characters from any reality but their own * New York Times * The novels are a delight, with touches of E. F. Benson, E. M. Delafield and P. G. Wodehouse -- Christopher Fowler * Independent on Sunday * Charming, very funny indeed. Angela Thirkell is perhaps the most Pym-like of any twentieth-century author, after Pym herself -- Alexander McCall SmithMore details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Little, Brown Book Group
Dimensions
Height: 198 mm
Width: 123 mm
Thickness: 25 mm
Weight
253 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-349-00740-3 (9780349007403)
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Other editions
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Persons
Angela Thirkell (1890-1961) was the eldest daughter of John William Mackail, a Scottish classical scholar and civil servant, and Margaret Burne-Jones. Her relatives included the pre-Raphaelite artist Edward Burne-Jones, Rudyard Kipling and Stanley Baldwin, and her grandfather was J. M. Barrie. She was educated in London and Paris, and began publishing articles and stories in the 1920s. In 1931 she brought out her first book, a memoir entitled Three Houses, and in 1933 her comic novel High Rising - set in the fictional county of Barsetshire, borrowed from Trollope - met with great success. She went on to write nearly thirty Barsetshire novels, as well as several further works of fiction and non-fiction. She was twice married and had four children.