LoveReading Says
LoveReading Says
January 2015 Guest Editor Harriet Evans on I Capture the Castle...
This is probably my favourite novel. It gives something new every time I reread it. At first it’s ‘just’ a story of a deliciously eccentric family living in a crumbling castle in a beautiful English village (and that’d be quite enough for me!) but it’s so much more than that. It’s about broken families, class, England before the war, and most importantly and daringly it’s about a young girl’s burgeoning sexuality.
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About I Capture the Castle
The eccentric Mortmain family have been rattling around in a vast, decrepit castle for years, gradually slipping into financial ruin. Mortmain is crippled by writer's block, while his second wife Topaz - a fading beauty - struggles to be a dutiful stepmother to Rose, Cassandra and Thomas. Rose needs a husband, Thomas an education but Cassandra lives for her writing. Through her gloriously witty and shrewd diaries, she chronicles the trials of family life, the impact on their prospects of the arrival of a glamorous American family and the agonies of falling in love for the first time.
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I Capture the Castle Synopsis
The eccentric Mortmain family have been rattling around in a vast, decrepit castle for years, gradually slipping into financial ruin. Mortmain is crippled by writer's block, while his second wife Topaz - a fading beauty - struggles to be a dutiful stepmother to Rose, Cassandra and Thomas. Rose needs a husband, Thomas an education but Cassandra lives for her writing. Through her gloriously witty and shrewd diaries, she chronicles the trials of family life, the impact on their prospects of the arrival of a glamorous American family and the agonies of falling in love for the first time.
Illustrated by Ruth Steed, with an Afterword by Anna South.
About This Edition
| ISBN: |
9781909621114 |
| Publication date: |
1st April 2014 |
| Author: |
Dodie Smith |
| Publisher: |
Macmillan Collector's Library an imprint of Macmillan |
| Format: |
Hardback |
| Pagination: |
444 pages |
| Primary Genre |
Modern and Contemporary Fiction
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| Other Genres: |
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| Recommendations: |
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Press Reviews
Dodie Smith Press Reviews
'There are many good reasons to read Dodie Smith's I Capture the Castle: it provides excellent advice about dressing on a budget (dye all your clothes sea-green); how to cope when the man you love falls for your elder sister (keep a diary) and your stepmother dances naked in the rain (ditto). Given that most teenagers believe their parents to be mad - and vice versa - the novel also serves as a helpful guide to recognising the fine line between eccentricity and outright insanity' Guardian
'A book for anyone who is young, poor, fed up and yearning for something exciting to happen' Irish Times
'When I read I Capture the Castle it immediately became one of my favourite novels of all time, and I was very annoyed that nobody had told me about it before' -- J.K Rowling
'Unputdownable and loved by teenagers and adults everywhere'. Observer
'Everyone I've passed it on to has found it a hit - it works every time, for absolutely everybody' -- Nigella Lawson
Author
About Dodie Smith
Dodie Smith was born in Manchester in 1896. Aged 17 she set off for London, determined to become an actress, but she struggled to find work, living off baked beans in freezing hostels. While working at the famous Heals department store, Dodie turned to writing plays instead, and her first was an overnight sensation - the newspapers excitedly declared 'Shopgirl Turns Playwright!'. During the war she moved to Hollywood with her husband, and it was there, spurned on by regret and homesickness for the English countryside she'd left behind, that Dodie began writing I Capture the Castle. When a friend gave Dodie a dalmatian puppy (presented in a hat box!) this began a life-long love of the spotty dogs. Dodie's well-loved novel 101 Dalmatians was inspired by her experiences of raising fifteen puppies. She lived in a ramshackle cottage with her husband and many other animals until her death in 1990, aged 94.
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