Angela Thirkell and Her 29 Adventures into Barsetshire

Her first novel, written in 1933, High Rising introduces readers to characters, story structures, and settings that she also explores in later books. This book begins with Laura Morland, a widowed mother of four sons. While three have up and moved on, Laura still has young Tony at home, a vivacious and often frustrating schoolboy to keep her company. 

Though we meet a whole slew of cozy characters in this first novel, the story centers around Miss Grey, an outsider who becomes the secretary for Laura’s dear friend Mr. Knox—and who hopes to also become Mrs. Knox. Unbeknownst to Mr. Knox, Miss Grey will even resort to foul play to make him hers, and it becomes Laura’s job to sort it all out, along with other romantic entanglements. 

In Thirkell’s next novel we return to Barsetshire, but follow a different, aristocratic English family of Rushwater House through their summer. 

The Leslie family’s leaders are Sir Henry and Lady Emily, and they are thrilled to have their daughter Agnes, Agnes’s four children, Agnes’s husband’s niece, and later, their grandson home for the summer. Agnes spends her summer match-making for Mary, her husband’s niece, in an attempt to make her part of the family. 

In novel number three we return to some of the original characters from the first novel, Laura Morland and her son Tony. This story explores the all-too-real relationship between a mother and her rambunctious, infuriating twelve-year-old son who everyone seems to adore and despise at the same time.

An Austen-ish novel depicting class and manners of a bygone era, the fourth installment in the Barsetshire series follows two families: the Tebbens, with children Richard (a recent university graduate with no drive) and Margaret (the younger of the two, who is often overlooked due to her parents’ focus on her brother), and the Dean family, a confident, well-to-do family that reminds the Tebbens just how close they are to falling off the gentry wagon. 

The two families get wrapped up in the neighborhood’s summer show of Hippolytus, and the most absurd romances bloom. 

This story takes place at Southbridge Preparatory School in Barsetshire, and includes familiar characters like Tony Morland as well as a great deal of new and delightful characters. It’s full of love stories between strapping young men and beautiful young ladies, a hilariously failed engagement, and shenanigans that could only ever occur at a preparatory boarding school. 

We’re introduced to more new characters in Thirkell’s sixth book – Lord and Lady Pomfret of Pomfret Towers. This installment displays 1938’s pre-WWII English pomp through a party thrown by Lord and Lady Pomfret at their home. It’s full of introductions to society, a big beautiful countryside, and plenty of happily ever afters. 

Returning once again to the Barsetshire countryside, we’re introduced to a slew of characters from all walks of life. With Miss Brandon nearing the end of her life, the question on everyone’s minds is who will end up with her home in the end. 

Through shenanigans, the ever-present romantic entanglements of multiple couples, and a vicarage fete, we eventually find out who keeps the house, and everyone’s lives settle down once more. 

In this bittersweet (but thankfully not melodramatic) tale, the story is focused mainly on Catherine Middleton and her relationship with her husband. Weaved throughout is a plot line in which the locals are upset about the proposed development of a plot of land, and the meeting they hold to plan the protest reveals the flawed love story of several others as well. 

Full of characters new and familiar, Cheerfulness Breaks In depicts the early years of WWII and the shadow it casts on our Barsetshire friends. As men go off to war and women step up to take their places in society, the English gentry still attempt to find love and happiness. 

Northbridge Rectory continues on with the wartime tales; in this book we see the effects of the blackouts, evacuees, rationing, and of course, the ever-looming fear of invasion. But in the midst of it all, Thirkell can’t help but humor her romantic heart and we find Mr. Downing, Miss Pemberton, and Mrs. Turner engaged in quite the love triangle, among other romances and shenanigans. 

In the midst of WWII’s rationing and changed living conditions, Mr. Marling comes to the realization that he will not be able to pass down his estate to his children. Life goes on as usual (or the usual it’s been since the start of the war) until the Harveys move in nearby and stir things up. Geoffrey Harvey begins to court the Marling’s older, widowed daughter Lettice, but finds he is in competition for her affections. 

A similar atmosphere to Cheerfulness Breaks In, this is more of a coming-of-age story than the other books thus far, and readers are reacquainted with characters who we’ve met before. 

As the war drags on, the characters are met with injured soldiers, uncertainty about absent friends, and of course, multiple simultaneous love stories, the main of which comes to a very romantic finale. 

With WWII still ablaze, the Beltons of Harefield Park find themselves so deep in their savings that they’re worried they’ll go broke–but even selling the family estate may not save them, as there’s not much demand in the midst of a war. 

But then they meet Miss Sparling, the headmistress of the recently evacuated Hoisers’ Girls’ Foundation School, who just happens to be in desperate need of a country mansion to let. 

Still in the thick of the war, this book focuses on Jane Gresham, a young mother whose husband has been missing in action for four years. She interacts with Robin Dale, a schoolteacher who returned from the war missing a foot, 17 year-old Anne Fielding, aging governess Miss Bunting, and Sam and Heather Adams, a father-daughter duo who are wealthy and kind, but not quite fitting in. 

Miss Bunting explores the summer these characters spend together and gives readers an idea of what British elitism looked like during the war. 

The title rings true to its content, as Peace Breaks Out is the first book in this series that explores life after the war. Though all could not be happier that the war is over, the new routines quickly become disconcerting, and they must all navigate their lives now that men are coming home and the social scenes are alive again. 

It doesn’t take long for everyone–including now 19 year-old Anne Fielding from the previous book–to end up in a flurry of misunderstandings and engagements.

With the bleak effects of WWII still lingering on the English countryside, many expected a boring summer…until Peggy Arbuthnot and her sister-in-law Effie arrived. Peggy drums up quite a few admirers for herself, one of them being Noel Merton, much to the dismay of his wife. Anticipation is high as everyone waits to see who will win Peggy’s hand, and if the Merton’s marriage survives.  

Almost every character we’ve met so far comes together in this next post-war addition to the series. We encounter characters who are looking for love, characters who are looking for money, but mostly, characters who are just looking to get through the day. 

Old Miss Sowerby is forced to sell her family home, and gets lucky when Sam Adams, a generous man who goes on to influence his neighbors in the best way, decides to buy it. A lot of the original families resurface in this book, giving readers a timely check up on them all.

This volume explores the lives of many families, old and new, as the older generation of the gentry begin to realize their land and holdings may not survive to be handed down to their children as an after-effect of the war. Similarly, this book also comments on how people were able to adjust after the war took so many lives. But it’s still funny, and, true to Thirkell, includes three engagements/weddings. 

Readers see many characters we’ve known before attend to some unfinished romantic business in the 20th book in the Barsetshire series. The prominent families of Barsetshire hang on to tradition as they produce a new generation of genteel brides and grooms in Thirkell’s witty parody of postwar English high society. 

It is mid-century and coming up on Christmas in 1951 as the older generation observes the younger generation with concern for the latter’s years of lost youth during the war. Both old and new faces arise in this story, and as always, Thirkell commits to giving us four different love stories, all ridden with the ripe problems of the postwar gentry. 

Jutland Cottage is nothing short of a fairy tale. Its bleak beginnings reveal that our Barsetshire friends are in deep mourning due to the loss of King George VI. But their spirits are quickly lifted with the appointment of a new Rector, as well as the return of the beautiful Rose Fairweather to the neighborhood. 

When the new Rector meets Margot, the impoverished spinster daughter of a retired admiral, Rose and her friends give Margot the Cinderella makeover of a lifetime. From there, Margot’s romantic, literary, and financial prospects are much improved. 

Queen Elizabeth II is to be crowned queen in this novel, and the people of Barsetshire want to make a good impression. Fortunately for them, the highly capable Lydia Merton takes the reins of the local committees’ coronation planning. Squabbles, jealousies, high jinks, and in true Thirkell fashion, romance arises, but Lydia carries on. 

This tale plays out the yearnings and hesitations of two young (potential) lovers. As Lady Graham awaits the arrival of her husband Sir Robert, who is finally retiring from his glorious military career, her daughter Edith has turned 18 and has her choice of suitors. But it’s unclear if she’ll choose love, or if she’ll take after her father and leave for America…

Edith Graham returns from America, still single, to visit Mrs. Morland in this novel. At first, she has her fair share of suitors…until the three begin to enjoy each other’s company so much that they start to ignore her. Similarly, Mrs. Morland has received a proposal, but she must find a way to let him down gently. 

Though the day to day struggles are never-ending, the two women and their Barsetshire neighbors will soon come upon a devastating loss. 

Old and wise enough to contain their excitement about getting married, Herbert Choyce and Miss Merriman let their excited Barsetshire neighbors rush them to the altar, with unexpected results. 

Edith Graham returns in this novel as well, gloomy as ever about her romantic prospects, but the romantic spirit of the Choyce wedding may just be contagious. 

Margot Mcfadyen, suffering from the loss of her husband after just five years of happiness, is looking for a house. As she calls on everyone from friends, to the local clergy, to old suitors, we’re swept up into the familiar Thirkellian social whirl. Many solutions to day to day problems are revealed when the dust settles. 

True to its title, Love at All Ages details relationships between two couples on opposite ends of the age spectrum. Lady Gwendolyn Harcourt marries elderly Rev. Oriel of Harefield, and 16 year-old Lavinia Merton explores the idea of a romantic connection between herself and her singing partner Ludovic, Lord Mellings. 

This is Thirkell’s last, unfinished novel, completed by her friend C.A. Lejeune, and acquaints us with both old friends and new. 

It’s quite a busy novel, including a little boy saving Miss Hampton and Miss Bent’s Wiple Terrace from destruction, the flowering of Lavinia Merton and Lord Mellings’ relationship, Dr. Ford’s reclamation of an old flame, and the Barsetshire bunch gathering at the Old Bank House to celebrate Mrs. Morland’s 70th birthday. And with that, we seem to come full-circle.