House of Fiction: From Pemberley to Brideshead, Great British Houses in Literature and Life

Discover how authors' personal experiences in their homes shaped the iconic imaginative dwellings of English literature: Virginia Woolf's love of Talland House is palpable in To the Lighthouse, just as London's Bloomsbury is ever-present in Mrs. Dalloway. E.M. Forster's childhood home at Rook's Nest mirrors the idyllic charm of Howards End. And Horace Walpole's "little Gothic castle" in Twickenham inspired him to write the first English Gothic novel, The Castle of Otranto. The English country house is also viewed through a modern lens--Kazuo Ishiguro's Darlington Hall, Ian McEwan's Tallis House, and Alan Hollinghurst's Two Acres. Using historic sources, biographies, letters, and the novels themselves, this book presents some of the most influential houses in Britain through the stories they inspired.