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The Real Life Downtown Abbey (2011)

by Jacky Hyams(Favorite Author)

3.22 of 5 Votes: 3

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

John Blake publishing ltd

review 1: If you ever wondered how a socialist looks at the era when there were still great estates look no further. Jacky Hyams can't conceal the disdain for the estate owners; toffs in the author's vernacular. I would agree that the servants did work very hard, but so did every one else in the working class. While going into service may not seem like a fun job I would say it is better than coal mining or working in a factory. The factual parts of the book were fascinating but the endless snark and disdain were off putting.
review 2: An interesting, if biased, account. Journalist Jacky Hyams assembled this book in a rush-to-press manner, it seems to me. Much material is repeated to pad the slim volume. Hyams is highly contemptuous of the upper class country estate "tof... morefs", deriding their extremely luxurious lifestyle. Admittedly the economic divide between the "haves" and the poor majority of the country is vast, as it is today in American society. World War I, industrialization and David Lloyd George put paid to the lavish lifestyle, as English society began to move toward the welfare state following World War II. less

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