Snobs

January 17, 2005
Wodehouse gets a modern twist in this brilliantly acerbic tale of snobbery and marital tomfoolery in 1990s London. Our nameless protagonist, a jovial, perceptive sort of 30-something fellow hanging affably about the fringes of society, introduces his middle-class but sleek and beautiful friend Edith Lavery to the earnest but dull Lord Charles Broughton. Much to the dismay of "civilized" society, Charles falls in love and proposes to the social-climbing but largely indifferent Edith. Even after she is married, Edith is snubbed and humiliated at every turn (in the slyest, politest possible way, of course), until she moves out in a huff with her married lover, Simon Russell, an actor/ego-on-legs who is eating up the publicity that comes with being seen with a countess and eager for this entrée into society (he doesn't realize Edith has been cast into the societal dung heap). To Edith's consternation, the glittering world of theater turns out to be just as small-minded and dull as that of society, with the added disadvantage of it not involving much money. Gossipy and dishy, this debut by the Oscar-winning screenwriter of Gosford Park
is a merciless and hilarious sendup of snobbery and social jealousy, revealing the pettiness and self-absorption of both the envious and the envied. Agent, Cathy King at ICM (U.K.). (Feb. 10)

Forecast:
Fellowes's satire of the English class system, a bestseller in the U.K., translates well for American readers. Anglophiles in particular will be in Brit-hit heaven.

October 15, 2004
How do you get a novel published? Write a screenplay first. The Academy Award-winning screenwriter of Gosford Park takes on British snobbishness in this tale of modest Edith's marriage to the heir to the Marquess of Uckfield.

Copyright 2004 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

January 1, 2005
As the Academy Award-winning screenwriter of " Gosford Park," Fellowes proved himself to be an arch observer of the quirks and customs of the British upper crust. Fast-forwarding half a century, he turns his attention to more contemporary characters still mired in the same class affectations and divisions. Beautiful Edith Lavery, an unabashed middle-class social climber, hits the jackpot when she snags the heir to an earldom. Not only is Charles Broughton titled but his clan has actually managed to maintain and increase the fabulous family fortune. Alas, life on the ancestral estate is not all that it is cracked up to be, and Edith soon grows weary of her dominating mother-in-law and bored with her stolid husband. After an unfortunate yet titillating dalliance, everyone stiffens their lips in proper public-school fashion and carries on admirably. This delightful comedy of manners good-naturedly lampoons a class of people whose artificiality is so inbred it becomes positively genuine. Veddy British, what?(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2005, American Library Association.)