Shelfari Book Activity

Tags: servants

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  The House at Riverton

  or, The Shifting Fog

  by Kate Morton

  The House at Riverton is a gorgeous debut novel set in England between the wars. It is the story of an aristocratic family, a house, a mysterious death and a way of life that vanished forever, told in flashback by a woman who witnessed it all and kept a secret for decades. Grace Bradley went to work at Riverton House as a servant when she was just a girl, before the First World War. For years her life was... (more)
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  The Remains of the Day

  by Kazuo Ishiguro

  The Remains of the Day is a profoundly compelling portrait of the perfect English butler and of his fading, insular world postwar England. At the end of his three decades of service at Darlington Hall, Stevens embarks on a country drive, during which he looks back over his career to reassure himself that he has served humanity by serving “a great gentleman.” But lurking in his memory are doubts about the true... (more)
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  The Mistress of Nothing

  by Kate Pullinger

  Lady Duff Gordon is the toast of Victorian London. But when her debilitating tuberculosis means exile, she and her devoted lady’s maid, Sally, set sail for Egypt. It is Sally who describes, with a mixture of wonder and trepidation, the odd ménage marshalled by the resourceful Omar, which travels down the Nile to a new life in Luxor. As Lady Duff Gordon undoes her stays and takes to native dress, throwing herself... (more)
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  The Space Between Us

  by Thrity N. Umrigar

  Poignant, evocative, and unforgettable, The Space Between Us is an intimate portrait of a distant yet familiar world. Set in modern-day India, it is the story of two compelling and achingly real women: Sera Dubash, an upper-middle-class Parsi housewife whose opulent surroundings hide the shame and disappointment of her abusive marriage, and Bhima, a stoic illiterate hardened by a life of despair and loss, who... (more)
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  Maid to Match

  by Deeanne Gist

  From the day she arrives at the Biltmore, Tillie Reese is dazzled--by the riches of the Vanderbilts and by Mack Danvers, a mountain man turned footman. When Tillie is enlisted to help tame Mack's rugged behavior by tutoring him in the ways of refined society, the resulting sparks threaten Tillie's efforts to be chosen as Edith Vanderbilt's lady's maid. But the stakes rise even higher when Mack and Tillie... (more)
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  The Silent Governess

  by Julie Klassen

  Believing herself guilty of a crime, Olivia Keene flees her home, eventually stumbling upon a grand estate where an elaborate celebration is in progress. But all is not as joyous as it seems. Lord Bradley has just learned a terrible secret, which, if exposed, will change his life forever. When he glimpses a figure on the grounds, he fears a spy or thief has overheard his devastating news. He is stunned to... (more)
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  The Observations

  by Jane Harris

  An extraordinary historical novel about a peculiar friendship between the mistress of a Scottish estate and her irresistibly appealing housemaid.Scotland, 1863. In an attempt to escape her not-so-innocent past in Glasgow, Bessy Buckley-a wide-eyed and feisty young Irish girl-takes a job as a maid in a big house outside Edinburgh working for the beautiful Arabella-the "missus." Bessy lacks the necessary... (more)
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  Cranford

  by Elizabeth Gaskell

  Cranford:- Gaskell’s witty and poignant comedy of country town life. A gently comic picture of life in an English country town in the mid-nineteenth century, Cranford describes the small adventures of Miss Matty and Miss Deborah, two middle-aged spinster sisters striving to live with dignity in reduced circumstances. Rich with humor and filled with vividly memorable characters — including the dignified Lady... (more)
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  The Wet Nurse's Tale

  by Erica Eisdorfer

  Bright and clever with a sharp-tongued, adventurous heroine who offers a candid and often funny look at the business of nursing babies in Victorian England, this is a debut novel that will have everyone talking. Susan Rose isn’t the average protagonist: she’s scheming, promiscuous, plump, and she is also smart, funny, tender, and entirely lovable. Like many lower-class women of Victorian England, she was born... (more)
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  Black Butler: Book 1

  Black Butler, Volume 1

  by Yana Toboso

  When a terrible fire claims his parents, Ciel Phantomhive must step up as the head of his father's company and as Earl Phantomhive. It would be a lot for the young boy to handle were it not for his faithful butler, Sebastian. Ever at Ciel's side, it seems there's little Sebastian can't do, whether it's saving a dinner party gone awry or probing the dark secrets of London's underbelly. He's almost too good to be... (more)
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  The Dark Lantern

  by Gerri Brightwell

  London, 1893. Elderly Mrs. Bentley is on her deathbed, and her son Robert has returned from France. But in the Bentleys’ well-appointed home, everyone has their secrets, including Robert’s beautiful and elusive wife, the orphan maid she hires from the country, and the mysterious young woman who arrives, claiming to be the bride of Robert’s drowned brother. Robert is quickly developing a reputation in... (more)
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  A Little Princess

  by Frances Hodgson Burnett

  Sara Crewe was best friends with her father, a captain. They always walked around hand in hand, and her father would give little Sara her heart's desires. Then one day Sara's father drops her off at old Miss Minchin's boarding school in London. There she is spoiled with her own room, with beautiful luxuries, closets full of silks and furs. But Sara Crew was not haughty or arrogant at all. She loved the company and... (more)
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  Wuthering Heights

  by Emily Brontë

  There are few more convincing, less sentimental accounts of love than Wuthering Heights. This is the story of a tormented foundling who falls in love with the daughter of his benefactor, and of the violence and misery that result from their thwarted longing for each other.
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  The Thief Taker

  by Janet Gleeson

  In the cellar there was no sound at all except her own breathing and the soft rustle of her skirts. After her eyes had grown accustomed to the dark, she noticed a niche in the wall a yard from where she stood. She saw something there about the size of her fist. Agnes quietly picked it up. It was wrapped in a cloth and surprisingly heavy. . . a pistol, the hilt filthy with mud and dirt. Suddenly she heard the... (more)
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  Chalion: Book 1

  The Curse of Chalion

  by Lois McMaster Bujold

  A man broken in body and spirit, Cazaril returns to the noble household he once served as page and is named secretary-tutor to the beautiful, strong-willed sister of the impetuous boy who is next in line to rule. It is an assignment Cazaril dreads, for it must ultimately lead him to the place he most fears: the royal court of Cardegoss, where the powerful enemies who once placed him in chains now occupy lofty... (more)
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  Small Kingdoms

  by Anastasia Hobbet

  Set in Kuwait during the ominous years between the two Gulf wars, Small Kingdoms traces the intersecting lives of five people rich and poor, native and foreigner, Muslim, Christian, and non-believer when they discover that a teenaged Indian housemaid is being brutally abused by her employer. Tensions are high. Just miles away in Iraq, Saddam Hussein is threatening a second invasion of this tiny desert kingdom,... (more)
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  Black Butler: Book 2

  Black Butler (Volume 2)

  by Yana Toboso

  Sebstian Michaelis. Occupation: Butler. He makes his master's afternoon tea, polishes the silver, and ...heads up murder investigations?! As London is seized by fear when Jack the Ripper begins his killing spree in Whitechapel, Queen Victoria commands Ciel Phantomhive and his seemingly superhuman butler Sebastian to step in. What will happen when the case takes a surprising turn that shatters one of the few truths... (more)
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  Parrot and Olivier in America

  by Peter Carey

  From the two-time Booker Prize–winning author: an irrepressibly funny new novel set in early-nineteenth-century America. Olivier—an improvisation on the life of Alexis de Tocqueville—is the traumatized child of aristocratic survivors of the French Revolution. Parrot is the motherless son of an itinerant English engraver. They are born on different sides of history, but their lives will be joined by an enigmatic... (more)
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  Prisoners in the Palace

  A Novel of Intrigue and Romance About How Princess Victoria Became Queen with the Help of a Maid, a Newspaperman, and a Scoundrel

  by Michaela MacColl

  London, 1838. Sixteen-year-old Liza's dreams of her society debut are dashed when her parents are killed in an accident. Penniless, she accepts the position of lady's maid to young Princess Victoria and steps unwittingly into the gossipy intrigue of the servant's world below-stairs as well as the trickery above. Is it possible that her changing circumstances may offer Liza the chance to determine her own fate,... (more)
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  Black Butler: Book 5

  Black Butler (Volume 5)

  by Yana Toboso

  For an impeccable gentleman's butler like Sebastian Michaelis, the word "impossible" is just not in his vocabulary. Everything demanded of him under the English sun is well within his grasp. But do his talents extend to things under the scalding Indian sun?! As Harold West Jeb's plan to use Agni, Prince Soma's superhuman butler, in a curry battle to win himself a Royal Warrant is exposed, along with his role in... (more)