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Servants' Hall: A Real Life Upstairs, Downstairs Romance (1979)

by Margaret Powell(Favorite Author)

3.29 of 5 Votes: 1

ISBN

1250029295 (ISBN13: 9781250029294)

languge

English

genre

Memoir & Autobiography

publisher

St. Martin's Press

review 1: Having planned a trip to England, I hoped that this book would provide insight into the mind of typical servant working for a rich English family. Instead, I felt like a third wheel listening in on conversations and not quite understanding the meanings and emotions of the participants. There was really no plot or structure to this book. It was more like reading a diary. A very difficult read!
review 2: Enjoyable enough, but rather meandering.The romance between Sir Gerald and the parlormaid Rose, as mentioned in the subtitle, is actually take care of in the first quarter of the book. Sir Gerald and his bride are immediately disowned by his imperious father, but Gerald ends up making piles of cash anyway (how is not explained). But alas, it ends up being ... morea Bad Romance for Rose is as dim and stubborn as she is pretty and Gerald learns that Looks Are Not Everything.The rest of the book is a chatty account of life under the stairs (or in the kitchen, since the writer is Cook) in the great houses of England during the '20s. The primarily female servants bounce from one position to the next, enjoying freedom (on their off hours), various degrees of comfort or austerity, and a not inconsiderable amount of personal prestige due to their situations. A world, of course, that was about to come to an abrupt end for most. less

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