Downton Abbey Rules for Household Staff by Justyn Barnes and Julian Fellowes
If you, like me, are a Downton Abbey fan and you’re waiting for the first episode of the show’s last season like a kid awaits Santa on Christmas, this book is a must read for you.
Downton Abbey: Rules for Household Staff is a short and little in appearance house manual, but for fans of the show it is a wonderful voyage to the downstairs Downtonian world. Being that is was written by Mr. Carson himself, it is impossible not to feel like you can hear him reading the book to you as you read.
The manual contains a series of instructions, directions and guidelines for those who aspire to perform correctly their duties as servants of the estate, with dignity and efficiency.It gives you an insight on how Downton Abbey runs thanks to the downstairs team. The infinite set of tasks and the detail of how they have to be performed. The book also comes with illustrations that are impeccably and very detailed hand drawn, adding more enjoyment to the readers’ experience with this book.
Even though this manual is for running a fictional household in the 1920’s, some of these instructions and procedures can be adopted in our modern times.
What I liked about the way Mr. Carson wrote this book was that it reminds the reader of the meaning of the word servant. “Improvers of Life” is what Mr. Carson calls them. More about this on the full review on my blog.
As a fan of the show, I must confess that I’m more a team upstairs (Lady Mary is my alter ego), but reading this book gave me a wider and more clear idea of what the downstairs team does and how valuable and irreplaceable they are for Downton Abbey.
Downton Abbey: Rules for Household Staff is a must read for Downton Abbey fans. It is the perfect book to read while we wait for the final season premiere. It is definitely a remedy for the Downton withdrawal symptoms every fan is suffering from. Season 6, it will be bittersweet but I can’t wait. Julian Fellowes, if you ever read this: thank you
DISCLOSURE STATEMENT
I received an Electronic copy of this book but was not financially compensated in any way nor obliged to review. The opinions expressed are my own and are based on my personal experience while reading it. This post contains affiliate links
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