KDL Recommends

Taking us from the cliff-lined shores of England to Paris, Munich, and the trenches of the Somme, The Children’s Book is a deeply affecting story of a singular family, played out against the great, rippling tides of the day.

In 1914, with World War I approaching, polar explorer Seamus Finnegan tries to forget Willa, a passionate mountain climber, as he marries a beautiful young woman back home in England.

The year is 1919 and the population of Great Britain is still struggling to its feet after being hit by the atrocities of the First World War. Gradually, soldiers return, wounds begin to heal and people try to move on with their lives.

Snobs is narrated by a journeyman actor who moves comfortably among the upper classes, while chronicling their foibles. And what a tale he has to tell.

Follows the fates of five interrelated families—American, German, Russian, English and Welsh—as they move through the world-shaking dramas of World War I, the Russian Revolution and the struggle for women’s suffrage.

Howards End is a novel that explores the many intricacies of class relations in English society during the turn of the century. Centering around three families representing England’s working class and wealthy elite, the novel weaves a complicated tapestry of misunderstandings, careless impulses, and, ultimately, tragedy.

The story of Soames Forsyte’s marriage to the beautiful and rebellious Irene, and its effects upon the whole Forsyte clan, The Forsyte Saga is a brilliant social satire of the acquisitive sensibilities of a comfort-bound class in its final glory.

Presents the story of vivacious Cora Cash, whose early twentieth-century marriage to England’s most eligible duke is overshadowed by his secretive nature and the traps and betrayals of London’s social scene.

The Morlands, now reunited with spouses, children, and friends who served in World War I and grieving the ones who didn’t return, attempt to return to normal life and put the horrors of the past few years behind them. For some, that means endless dancing, hence the title.

A profoundly compelling portrait of the perfect English butler and of his fading, insular world in postwar England. Stevens embarks on a motoring trip through the West Country, on an odyssey that evokes disturbing memories of his thirty years of service to Lord Darlington and of the housekeeper, Miss Kenton.

Grace Bradley went to work at Riverton House as a servant when she was just a girl, before the First World War. For years her life was inextricably tied up with the Hartford family. In the summer of 1924, at a glittering society party held at the house, a young poet shot himself. The only witnesses were the two Hartford daughters, and only they – and Grace – know the truth.

When Grace Carlisle arrives in London, she takes a job as a housemaid where she becomes caught up in the lives of its inhabitants—in particular, those of its privileged son, Edward, and daughter, Beatrice

The author sweeps us into the golden summer of 1914, a time of brief enchantment when English men and women basked in the security of wealth and power, even as the last weeks of their privileged world were swiftly passing. Theirs was a peace that led to war.

A 19-year-old Jewish girl in 1938 Vienna escapes the Nazis by becoming a domestic servant in England at Tyneford, home of the aristocratic Rivers family, where she forms a friendship with the youngest son that changes them both.

A battlefield nurse during World War I, Bess Crawford, returning to London for a well-earned Christmas leave, finds her holiday fraught with mystery and murder when she agrees to help a bruised and battered woman return to her small village in Sussex.

Four women in post-war England connect with each other—and the castle of their dreams—through a classified ad in a London newspaper one rainy February afternoon. The ladies expect a pleasant holiday, but they don’t anticipate that the month they spend in Portofino will reintroduce them to their true natures and reacquaint them with joy.

Tells the story of Charles Ryder’s infatuation with the Marchmain family and the rapidly-disappearing world of privilege they inhabit. Enchanted first by Sebastian at Oxford, then by his doomed family, in particular his remote sister, Julia, Charles comes finally to recognize only his spiritual and social distance from them.

Recreates the 1912 sinking of the Titanic as observed by millionaire John Jacob Astor, a beautiful young Lebanese refugee finding first love, “Unsinkable” Molly Brown, Captain Smith, and others, including the iceberg itself.

A companion book to the popular British series about the aristocratic Crawley family and their servants offers insights into the story and characters and background information on British society in the early years of the twentieth century.

Much like her Masterpiece Classic counterpart Lady Cora Crawley, Lady Almina was the daughter of a wealthy industrialist. 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.

Brilliantly evoking the long-vanished world of masters and servants portrayed in Downton Abbey and Upstairs, Downstairs, this classic memoir of Powell’s time in service is the remarkable true story of an indomitable woman who, though she served in the great houses of England, never stopped aiming high.