Snobs
From the creator of DOWNTON ABBEY and THE GILDED AGE
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4.1 • 16 Ratings
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
FROM THE CREATOR OF DOWNTON ABBEY and THE GILDED AGE
A SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER
'A modern classic that will fill any Downton-shaped hole' Daily Express
'A delicious thoroughbred delight' Stephen Fry
'A brilliantly malicious portrait of upper-class society and all those who long to be accepted by them' Jilly Cooper
Edith Lavery is a woman on the make.
The attractive only child of a middle-class accountant, she leaves behind her dull job in a Chelsea estate agents and manages to bag one of the most eligible bachelors of the day - Charles Broughton, heir to the Marquess of Uckfield.
But is life amongst the upper echelons of 'good' society all that it seems?
'Horribly compelling' The Times
'Provocative, titillating and seductive' Spectator
'Everything you would hope for from the writer of Gosford Park' Stephen Fry
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Wodehouse gets a modern twist in this brilliantly acerbic tale of snobbery and marital tomfoolery in 1990s London. Our nameless protagonist, a jovial, perceptive sort of 30-something fellow hanging affably about the fringes of society, introduces his middle-class but sleek and beautiful friend Edith Lavery to the earnest but dull Lord Charles Broughton. Much to the dismay of "civilized" society, Charles falls in love and proposes to the social-climbing but largely indifferent Edith. Even after she is married, Edith is snubbed and humiliated at every turn (in the slyest, politest possible way, of course), until she moves out in a huff with her married lover, Simon Russell, an actor/ego-on-legs who is eating up the publicity that comes with being seen with a countess and eager for this entr e into society (he doesn't realize Edith has been cast into the societal dung heap). To Edith's consternation, the glittering world of theater turns out to be just as small-minded and dull as that of society, with the added disadvantage of it not involving much money. Gossipy and dishy, this debut by the Oscar-winning screenwriter of Gosford Park is a merciless and hilarious sendup of snobbery and social jealousy, revealing the pettiness and self-absorption of both the envious and the envied.
