An English butler reflects--sometimes bitterly, sometimes humorously--on his service to a lord between the two world wars and discovers doubts about his master's character and about the ultimate value of his own service to humanity.

In Virginia Woolf's lyrical, inventive last novel, the action takes place on one summer's day at a country house in the heart of England on the eve of World War II. "Love. Hate. Peace. Three emotions made the ply of human life." Between the Acts takes place on a June day in 1939 at Pointz Hall, the Oliver family's country house in the heart of England. In the garden, everyone from the village has gathered to present the annual pageant ??-?? scenes...

Peter receives a piece of land as a gift for his upcoming wedding. While preparing the property to build a home for his new family, he finds human remains in the ground. He decides to keep the discovery to himself so that all of the wedding arrangements can go on as planned. However, the deeper he tries to keep his secret, the more he seems to be under control of something -- or rather someone -- as strange visions and events begin to haunt the celebratory...

"It is the seventeenth century and a wall is being raised around Wychwood, transforming the great house and its park into a private realm of ornamental lakes, grandiose gardens, and majestic avenues designed by Mr. Norris, a visionary landscaper. In this enclosed world everyone has something to hide after decades of civil war. Dissenters shelter in the woods, lovers rendezvous in secret enclaves, and outsiders--migrants fleeing the plague--find no...

Sorrel Sparrow, an American nursery owner with a rare gift with plants, jumps at the chance to help revive a run-down Shakespearean garden on a country estate in England. The ancestral home of Sir Graham Kirkwood and his wife, Stella, the Kirkwood Hall garden exudes a sense of heartbreak, betrayal and enchantment. As Sorrel becomes intrigued with the house's haunting history-- and the owner's brother-in-law-- she slowly unravels the ancient garden's...

At the age of ten, Fanny Price leaves the poverty of her Portsmouth home to be brought up among the family of her wealthy uncle, Sir Thomas Bertram, in the chilly grandeur of Mansfield Park. She gradually falls in love with her cousin Edmund, but when the dazzling and sophisticated Crawfords arrive, and amateur theatricals unleash rivalry and sexual jealousy, Fanny has to fight to retain her independence. This new edition places Mansfield Park in...

After the tragic and mysterious death of one of their founding members, the young musicians in a British acid-folk band hole up at Wylding Hall, an ancient country house with its own dark secrets. There they record the classic album that will make their reputation but at a terrifying cost, when Julian Blake, their lead singer, disappears within the mansion and is never seen again. Now, years later, each of the surviving musicians, their friends and...

Jim Henderson is one of six guests summoned by the mysterious Edwin Carson, a collector of precious stones, to a weekend party at his country house, Thrackley. The house is gloomy and forbidding but the party is warm and hospitable except for the presence of Jacobson, the sinister butler. The other guests are wealthy people draped in jewels; Jim cannot imagine why he belongs in such company. After a weekend of adventure, with attempted robbery and...

House of Splendid Isolation is a newly reissued novel from Edna O’Brien, the author of Girl—“one of the most celebrated writers in the English language” (NPR’s Weekend Edition). The heartbreaking dilemmas and the noble and bloody history of Ireland come vividly to life in the tale of Josie, a widow living in a solitary house outside an Irish village, whose home becomes the hideout of an IRA terrorist.

When a lower-class neighbor ruins his perfect view by building on an adjoining country estate, a disgruntled Miles Straker is further incensed by the neighbor's acceptance into the country gentry and vows to destroy the irritating newcomer's estate