Jutland Cottage

In this mid-century installment of her much-loved modern Barsetshire chronicles, Angela Thirkell weaves two colorful strands into the fabric of a charming plot. The first continues her narrative of the social a romantic entanglements of the generations in her fictional stretch of English countryside, which, as the novel opens, has been cast into mourning by the death of King George VI. Soon enough, however, local gossip takes center stage, and other pieces of news, the appointment of a new Rector, "Tubby" Fewling from Northbridge, and the return to the vicinity of the beautiful Rose Fairweather ("A better antidote to true grief for a departed king could not have been imagined") begin to occupy the minds (and tongues!) of denizens. The second strand of this captivating novel is nothing less than a Barsetshire fairy tale. It begins when Canon Fewling meets, among his new parishioners, Margot Phelps, the impoverished spinster daughter of a retired admiral. Led by Rose Fairweather, the women of the community take it upon themselves to treat Margot to a make-over. It begins with hair and clothes and ends with her self-confidence that leads everyone to see her in a new light. Like Cinderella, Margot Phelps is transformed, and all her fortunes, from the romantic to the financial to even the literary, are happily enhanced.