Books Monthly Review of Books

Anyone who's fighting to keep Britain's libraries open - it's unthinkable that anyone could even contemplate this - there is a Facebook page, just search for "save our libraries" and the UK page will show up...

The series is set in the fictional Downton Abbey, stately home of the Earl and Countess of Grantham, and follows the lives of the aristocratic Crawley family and their servants early in the reign of King George V. The series spans the two years prior to the Great War, commencing with news of thesinking of the Titanic, an event that sets the story in motion.Highclere Castle in Hampshire was used to represent Downton Abbey in the filming, with the servants' living areas constructed and filmed at Ealing Studios.

The village of Bampton in Oxfordshire was used for filming the outdoor scenes, most notably St Mary's Church and the village library, which serves as the entrance to the cottage hospital. Series characters often refer to the North Yorkshire towns of Malton, Easingwold, and Kirkby; Ripon and Thirsk have also been mentioned. However, the Downton estate is centred on the fictional village of Downton, a place name in several English counties but not in Yorkshire.

The first series cost an estimated £1 million per episode. It is also the most successful British period drama since Brideshead Revisited, with British ratings exceeding 10 million viewers. Similarly, the series enjoyed successful ratings in the United States, averaging over 6 million viewers per episode. With such phenomenal success, it is no surprise to find publishers falling over themselves to put out books about the series. The best, in my opinion, comes from Collins and is published this month - it just happens to be one of my "editor's choices" for this month and you can read about it on the Nonfiction page here.

John Blake publishing also have a book out on Downton Abbey: THE REAL DOWNTON ABBEY. Step back a hundred years to the world of the pampered, privileged upper classes and look inside a house of high society to find out exactly what goes on behind the magisterial doors of a typical stately home. They were the super rich of their times, pampered beyond belief - the early 20th century Edwardian gentry, who lived like superstars, their every desire or need catered to by an army of butlers, servants, footmen, housekeepers and grooms. Class, money, inheritance, luxury and snobbery dominated every aspect of the lives of the upper crust Edwardian family, led by a typically dignified yet authoritarian patriarch in an era where well bred children were to be seen and not heard, yet treated like princes and princesses. Comparisons abound, of course, between DOWNTON ABBEY and UPSTAIRS DOWNSTAIRS, which the revived earlier this year. There are several books about life above and below stairs at the turn of the twentieth century, and the author and creator of Downton Abbey, Julian Fellowes, has written other novels set in the Edwardian period. Just what the fascination is with Downton Abbey is hard to pin down - UPSTAIRS DOWNSTAIRS was always a great Sunday night option on TV, and the first series of DOWNTON notched up some impressive viewing figures. It's not nostalgia, because the number of people who can actually remember the Edwardian era must be very low indeed as we journey through the second decade of the twenty-first century. It is to do with history, and a fascination with how the upper and lower-classes fared during those tumultuous years that found us fighting the war to end all wars. In a time when the divide between rich and poor is greater than ever, and getting bigger by the day, it is perhaps comforting to know that there was a time when the upper classes treated the lower classes with a kind of respect that doesn't exist today.

In a time when more than 75% of the cabinet are millionaires and totally out of touch with society and the lives of ordinary people, this is pure escapism. It's fiction. We know it happened, and people were really like that, and thinking about it, the real aristocracy mostly are still like that - a breed apart, attempting to preserve a way of life that actually disappeared at the end of the first world war. It is the nouveau riche, the Camerons, the Cleggs and the Osbornes of today's society who are out of place, out of step, out of reality - and dangerously mad with it. Many people who revere the aristocacy and the monarchy would prefer things to go back to the way they were at the turn of the last century - you knew where you were with the upper classes then. Now they're just out to destroy us. The Crawleys valued their employees and respected them. Today's scurrilous, cheating government do neither, and it's that simple fact that draws us to the beauty, the elegance and the fascination of Downton Abbey. A la recherche du temps perdu... says it all, really. The Edwardian period is an era that continues to fascinate, and its encapsulation in TV drama of the quality of Downton Abbey is something to treasure.

Books Monthly is published by Paul Edmund Norman on the first day of each month. Web design is by Gateway. Submitting to Books Monthly: Basically, all you need do is e-mail it along and I'll consider it - it can be any length, if it's very long I'll serialise it, if it's medium-length I'll put it in as a novella, if it's a short story or a feature article it will go in as it comes. Payment is zero, I'm afraid, as I don't make any money from Books Monthly, I do it all for fun! For Advertising rates in Books Monthly please contact me at paulenorman@yahoo.co.uk. Should you be kind enough to want to send me books to review, please contact me by e-mail and I will gladly forward you my home address. Meanwhile, here's how to contact me: paulenorman@yahoo.co.uk