This is the story of the Honourable Guinevere Dilberne, daughter of Arnold, 11th Earl of Dilberne, Sandra Sinclair and Rita Boniface. Yes, that's right. Three parents. Or, in fact, four, if you wish to count Sandra's husband Clive. Though he played little part in it. It all begins with a loving couple, their intefering neighbour, a test tube and a turkey baster. These days, anything can happen...
In Fay Weldon's 1983 classic, The Life and Loves of a She Devil, women fought men for power and won. In 2017, men take the ultimate step to get their power back. Ruth Patchett, the original 'She Devil,' is now eighty-four and keen to retire. But who can take up her mantle? Enter Ruth's grandson Tyler, a confident twenty-something: beautiful, resentful and unemployed. Tyler won't be satisfied until he can transition into the ultimate symbol of power and status. A woman.
Consider Vivien in November 1922: she is twenty-four, and a spinster. She wears fashionable clothes, but she is plain and - almost worse in those times - intelligent. At nearly six foot tall, she is known unkindly by her family as 'the giantess.' Fortunately, Vivien is rich, so she can travel to London and bribe a charismatic gentleman publisher to marry her. What he does not know is that Vivien is pregnant with another man's child, and will die in childbirth in just a few months...
Reviewers have been describing Fay Weldon's inimitable voice for years. Now, here is Fay Weldon in her own words, selecting and introducing her favourite short stories from across her career as one of Britain's foremost contemporary novelists.
From the award-winning novelist and writer of Upstairs Downstairs, the third book in a brilliant trilogy about what life was really like for masters and servants before the world of Downton Abbey.
England, 1903. Lord Robert and Lady Isobel Dilberne and the entire grand estate, with its hundred rooms, is busy planning for a visit from Edward VII and Queen Alexandra just a few months a way. Preparations are elaborate and exhaustive: the menus and fashions must be just so, and so must James, the new heir and son of Arthur Dilberne and Chicago heiress, Minnie O'Brien. But there are problems. Little James is being reared to Lady Isobel's tastes, not Minnie's. And Mrs. O'Brien is visiting from America and causing trouble. Meanwhile, the Dilbernes' niece, Adela is back and stirring up hysteria in the servants hall by claiming the house is cursed. The royal visit is imperiled, but so are the Dilberne finances once more. His Lordship is under tremendous stress, and the pecking order will soon be upset as everything at Dilberne Court changes.
The New Countess is the final novel in Fay Weldon's exciting trilogy that began with Habits of the House and Long Live the King. The bestselling novelist and award-winning writer of the pilot episode of the original Upstairs Downstairs lifts the curtain on British society, upstairs and downstairs, under one roof.
From the award-winning writer of the original Upstairs Downstairs the second novel in an irresistible trilogy about an Earl's family and his servants at the turn of the twentieth century.
As 1901 comes to an end, there is much to be grateful for: The Dilberne fortune has been restored, and the grand Dilberne Court, with its one hundred rooms, has been saved. Lord Robert's son, Arthur, is happily married to Chicago heiress, Minnie, who is pregnant and trying to come to terms with her new role as lady of the manor, and her charming but controlling mother-in-law, Lady Isobel. As Lord Robert and Lady Isobel get caught up in the preparations of the coronation of Edward VII, they debate the future of their recently orphaned niece, Adela. Isobel and Minnie want to take her in; Robert and Arthur do not. While they argue, Adela runs away and joins a travelling group of spiritualists and has a life-saving run-in with the king.
With Long Live the King, Fay Weldon continues the magnificent trilogy that began with Habits of the House. As the award-winning writer for the pilot episode of the original Upstairs Downstairs, Weldon brings her deservedly famous wit and insight to this novel of love and desire, morals and manners.
From the award-winning novelist and writer of Upstairs Downstairs, the launch of a brilliant new trilogy about what life was really like for masters and servants before the world of Downton Abbey
As the Season of 1899 comes to an end, the world is poised on the brink of profound, irrevocable change. The Earl of Dilberne is facing serious financial concerns. The ripple effects spread to everyone in the household: Lord Robert, who has gambled unwisely on the stock market and seeks a place in the Cabinet; his unmarried children, Arthur, who keeps a courtesan, and Rosina, who keeps a parrot in her bedroom; Lord Robert's wife Isobel, who orders the affairs of the household in Belgrave Square; and Grace, the lady's maid who orders the life of her mistress.
Lord Robert can see no financial relief to an already mortgaged estate, and, though the Season is over, his thoughts turn to securing a suitable wife (and dowry) for his son. The arrival on the London scene of Minnie, a beautiful Chicago heiress with a reputation to mend, seems the answer to all their prayers.
As the writer of the pilot episode of the original Upstairs, Downstairs Fay Weldon brings a deserved reputation for magnificent storytelling. With wit and sympathy and no small measure of mischief Habits of the House plots the interplay of restraint and desire, manners and morals, reason and instinct.
Walter Matthau stars in the story of a climate scientist trying to balance romance and research. The piece is both serious and surreal as Matthau removes the “fourth wall” while addressing the show’s recording engineer.
An L.A. Theatre Works full-cast performance featuring Barbara Bain, Zeljko Ivanek and Valerie Landsburg.
Directed by Shaun McLoughlin. Recorded before a live audience in Santa Monica, CA in June, 1992.
A novel about the perfect pair - or are they?Annette and Spicer make a perfect pair: he thirty-nine, wide-shouldered, square-jawed, and often likened to Harrison Ford; she slight, fair, delicately featured, and sometimes likened to Meryl Streep. He with a son (Jason, eleven) from a previous marriage, she with a daughter (Susan, thirteen) from a ditto. He and she, after ten years, expecting their own baby. But on this, the first day of the rest of their blissful lives, Spicer fails to kiss Annette goodbye as he leaves for the office.
How many women can you fit into one body? A novel of split personalities.A marriage, its breakdown, and a perforated heroine: one woman, many faces, many personalities, and more emerging: a crumbling house, and the rooms of that house (which in our dreams are aspects of the self). Any more trauma and it's all over!Sir Edwin Rice has decided to divorce Lady Angelica, ex-rock star. She has behaved intolerably. He petitions the Court to set him free. Angelica fights back. She is not what he thinks - but then what woman ever is? Angelica takes a job as secretary to her husband's divorce solicitor - only to find one false personality leading to another. How is she to find herself: amongst good wife Angelica, Angel the tart, Jelly the secretary, all-male Ajax, Angela the hopeless - and only one body, albeit a beautiful one, to go round between the lot of them?
The fantasy of the wronged woman made real: wild funny and true. 'The fun grows steadily blacker and wilder.' The GuardianWhen Ruth Pratchett discovers her husband is having a passionate affair with the lovely romantic novelist Mary Fisher, she is so seized by envy she becomes truly diabolic, embarking on a course of destruction which brings those around her their just deserts and herself an amazing reward. This is the fantasy of the wronged woman made real: wild, funny, true.
An astonishing audiobook that probes into the strange world of genetic engineering.Joanna May thought herself unique, indivisible - until one day, to her hideous shock, she discovered herself to be five: though childless she was a mother; though an only child she was surrounded by sisters young enough to be her daughers - Jane, Julie, Gina and Alice, the clones of Joanna May.How will they withstand the shock of first meeting? And what of the avenging Carl, Joanna's former husband and the clones' creator: will he take revenge for his wife's infidelity and destroy her sisters one by one?In this astonishing novel, Fay Weldon weaves a web of paradox quite awesome in its cunning. Probing into the strange world of genetic engineering, The Cloning of Joanna May raises frightening questions about our identity as individuals - and provides some startling answers. Funny, serious, revolutionary, this is the work of a master storyteller at the height of her powers.
