Lady Almina and the Real Downton Abbey
The Lost Legacy of Highclere Castle
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4.2 • 426 Ratings
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
The real-life inspiration and setting for the Emmy Award-winning Downton Abbey, Lady Almina and the Real Downton Abbey tells the story behind Highclere Castle and the life of one of its most famous inhabitants, Lady Almina, the 5th Countess of Carnarvon.
Drawing on a rich store of materials from the archives of Highclere Castle, including diaries, letters, and photographs, the current Lady Carnarvon has written a transporting story of this fabled home on the brink of war. Much like her Masterpiece Classic counterpart, Lady Cora Crawley, Lady Almina was the daughter of a wealthy industrialist, Alfred de Rothschild, who married his daughter off at a young age, her dowry serving as the crucial link in the effort to preserve the Earl of Carnarvon's ancestral home. Throwing open the doors of Highclere Castle to tend to the wounded of World War I, Lady Almina distinguished herself as a brave and remarkable woman.
This rich tale contrasts the splendor of Edwardian life in a great house against the backdrop of the First World War and offers an inspiring and revealing picture of the woman at the center of the history of Highclere Castle.
Customer Reviews
Time and Place
The reviews for this book are a little baffling. Either tripe or treasure. It's really a perfectly nice light biography that has good information about the conventions of these people and those around them. It's also a very good history of life on the home front during World War I. The author can probably be forgiven for leaving out some of the more scandalous aspects of these people since they are her predecessors at Highclere. On the positive side she probably has unique knowledge of the place and people. The book did end very suddenly. Almina died in the 1960s in poverty. This is left out completely. Why didn't her relations step in and help? Very curious.
Lady Almina and the Real Downton Abbey
Tripe. Amateurish PR. Disappointing.
Thank you, Lady Carnarvon. . .
For this wonderful history lesson. Not only of your and Lord Carnarvon’s forebears, but the house and times they lived through.