bethg331 's review for:

Lady Almina and the Real Downton Abbey: The Lost Legacy of Highclere Castle by Fiona Carnarvon

5.0

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I loved Downton Abbey and I have had my eye on this book for a while, so when someone donated it to a library I volunteer at, I was very excited. This book is about the real castle that Downton Abbey is filmed at. This book follows the 5th Earl of Carnarvon and his wife during the same time period as Downton Abbey. Unfortunately for Almina it looked like the Earl wanted to marry her for her money. Luckily I guess they liked each other so it ended up okay. Almina had a very wealthy father but she was his illegitimate child so she was very much shunned by society. The Duke knew she came with wealth and he had a lot of debt so he sought her out. The book had so many fascinating pictures in it, which I loved seeing. I felt there were too many chapters about WWI so that slowed down my reading. An interesting tidbit is that back then wealthy people funded the hospitals. Almina made her home a hospital, which they used that in Downton Abbey as well. Also I found it interesting that because so many people in the country were mad at Germany during WWI, that the royal family changed their name from Saxe-Coburg and Gotha to Windsor. Also, the Earl is the one who discovered King Tut's tomb. So many fascinating things in this book.

"A good education is the best heritage we can give our children."

"In the dark ages, which are not very far behind us, we used to be called the weaker sex. We never were, and we never shall be weaker in our patriotism. In this as in similar matters we are neither inferior nor superior, but only very different and I am convinced that we shall do most good to our country and her cause if instead of imitating men we endeavor to widen and perhaps enrich the spirit of public life by being simply ourselves."