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Bettie's Books

A Stuga On the Cusp of the Orust Riviera, tucked away next to a hobbit hole in the woods.

Mrs Craddock by W. Somerset Maugham

Mrs Craddock - W. Somerset Maugham, Paul Couturiau
bookshelves: winter-20142015, published-1902, under-500-ratings
Recommended to ☯Bettie☯ by: Laura
Read from December 22 to 25, 2014

 

Description: It is the end of the 19th century and Victoria's reign is coming to an end. It is also the end of an era, but no one knows. The landed gentry, so soon to lose their power, are the last to suspect.

Bertha Ley is mistress of Court Ley, a great spread of land. She marries Edward Craddock, a man beneath her station, but quite the essence of new order. A gentleman farmer, he is steady and a doer who turns Court Ley into an efficient farm. But Bertha wants passion and ardor: she gets reality.


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Opening: THIS book might be called also The Triumph of Love. Bertha was looking out of window, at the bleakness of the day. The sky was sombre and the clouds heavy and low; the neglected carriage-drive was swept by the bitter wind, and the elm-trees that bordered it were bare of leaf, their naked branches shivering with horror of the cold. It was the end of November, and the day was utterly cheerless. The dying year seemed to have cast over all Nature the terror of death; the imagination would not bring to the wearied mind thoughts of the merciful sunshine, thoughts of the Spring coming as a maiden to scatter from her baskets the flowers and the green leaves.

Bertha turned round and looked at her aunt, cutting the leaves of a new Spectator. Wondering what books to get down from Mudie’s, Miss Ley read the autumn lists and the laudatory expressions which the adroitness of publishers extracts from unfavourable reviews.




5* Of Human Bondage
4* The Razor's Edge
3* The Narrow Corner
4* The Painted Veil
4* The Moon and Sixpence
4* Collected Stories
3* The Magician
3* Ashenden
OH Rain and Other South Sea Stories
TR Liza of Lambeth
TR Collected Stories Vol II
CR Mrs Craddock
TR On A Chinese Screen
2* The Circle - A Comedy in Three Acts
4* For Services Rendered and Other Plays
3* Lord Mountdrago