Snobs, Julian Fellowes
Snobs, Julian Fellowes
1 Rating(s)
List: $19.99 | Sale: $13.99
Club: $9.99

Snobs
A Novel

Author: Julian Fellowes

Narrator: Julian Fellowes

Abridged: 5 hr 28 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 02/01/2005


Synopsis

Julian Fellowes, creator of the Emmy-Award winning TV series Downton Abbey, established himself as an irresistible storyteller and a deliciously witty chronicler of modern manners in his first novel, Snobs, a wickedly astute portrait of the intersecting worlds of aristocrats and actors.

"The English, of all classes as it happens, are addicted to exclusivity. Leave three Englishmen in a room and they will invent a rule that prevents a fourth joining them."

The best comedies of manners are often deceptively simple, seamlessly blending social critique with character and story. In his superbly observed first novel, Julian Fellowes, winner of an Academy Award for his original screenplay of Gosford Park, brings us an insider's look at a contemporary England that is still not as classless as is popularly supposed.

Edith Lavery, an English blonde with large eyes and nice manners, is the daughter of a moderately successful accountant and his social-climbing wife. While visiting his parents' stately home as a paying guest, Edith meets Charles, Earl of Broughton, and heir to the Marquess of Uckfield, who runs the family estates in East Sussex and Norfolk. To the gossip columns he is one of the most eligible young aristocrats around.

When he proposes. Edith accepts. But is she really in love with Charles? Or with his title, his position, and all that goes with it?

One inescapable part of life at Broughton Hall is Charles's mother, the shrewd Lady Uckfield, known to her friends as "Googie" and described by the narrator---an actor who moves comfortably among the upper classes while chronicling their foibles---"as the most socially expert individual I have ever known at all well. She combined a watchmaker's eye for detail with a madam's knowledge of the world." Lady Uckfield is convinced that Edith is more interested in becoming a countess than in being a good wife to her son. And when a television company, complete with a gorgeous leading man, descends on Broughton Hall to film a period drama, "Googie's" worst fears seem fully justified.

About Julian Fellowes

Julian Fellowes is the Emmy Award-winning writer and creator of Downton Abbey and the winner of the 2001 Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for Gosford Park. He also wrote the screenplays for Vanity Fair and The Young Victoria. He is the bestselling author of Snobs and Past Imperfect. His other works include The Curious Adventure of the Abandoned Toys and the book for the Disney stage musical of Mary Poppins. As an actor, his roles include Lord Kilwillie in the BBC Television series Monarch of Glen and the 2nd Duke of Richmond in Aristocrats, as well as appearances in the films Shadowlands, Damage, and Tomorrow Never Dies. He lives in London and Dorset, England.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Lady Clementina on July 28, 2021

This is the first book I’ve read by Fellowes though I enjoyed Downton Abbey a lot. Snobs sort of takes one back into that world but in a more modern time (the 1990s) and certainly turned out quite different from what I’d expected. Our unnamed narrator (rather like Nancy Mitford’s Fanny Wincham, but......more

Goodreads review by Blair on July 09, 2015

Snobs was initially a pleasurably satirical and snippy read, but after numerous chapters of the seemingly endless and very tedious ins-and-outs of aristocratic society, it started to become - to employ a word used frequently in the book - dreary, and by the end I didn't care what happened. It was we......more

Goodreads review by Laura on August 19, 2008

As delicious as fizzy lemonade and only slightly more substantive, this novel by the screenwriter of “Gosford Park” takes you through the courtship and marriage of a middle-class beauty (“I knew she was a social climber; I didn’t realize she was a mountaineer!”) and an aristocratic dullard. No one e......more

Goodreads review by Elizabeth on October 15, 2009

Wow. this guy really nailed it. This book reminded me of someone paring a fish with the ease of a surgeon. Fellows examines social protocol in a certain circle by flaking it from the chaos of conversation, holding it up to the light, and explaining exactly why everything about it is preposterous. Ev......more

Goodreads review by Irena on May 02, 2021

"Snobs" is an entertaining fictionalised study of the fascinating world of British snobbery. Due to his origin and life experience, Julian Fellowes is well-posed and well-equipped for writing about this topic. Is "Snobs" likely to leave an everlasting, life-changing trace in the reader's heart? Defin......more


Quotes

“Provocative, titillating, and seductive.” —The Spectator

“Sparklingly rompish...As long as this world does still exist, Fellowes is a delectable guide to its absurdities.” —Sunday Times (London)

“Illustrated with some cherishably nasty, Gosford Park-style scenes of aristocratic point-scoring...[One] of those books one imagines being sent up to Balmoral...where it will be proclaimed divinely funny and quite amazingly true to life.” —The Guardian