Lady Catherine, the Earl, and the Real Downton Abbey

Lady Catherine, the Earl, and the Real Downton Abbey is the Countess of Carnarvon's second book chronicling the lives and times of the inhabitants of Highclere, aka Downton Abbey. The family at the center of this book is that of American-born Catherine, who was descended of two of New York's first families, the Wendalls and the Lowells as well as the first family of the south, the Lees, and the sixth earl, known to all as Porchey.

Unlike Prochey's parents, Lady Almina and the fifth earl, Catherine and Porchey seem to have been rather unhappy. This might have had more than a little something to do with his inveterate womanizing. Of course, the years following the Great War were not easy ones for the heirs of the great houses, and what the Roaring Twenties wrought came due in the form of the Great Depression and World War II, the latter of which features especially prominently in this book. (As a side note, the Countess's first book, Lady Almina and the Real Downton Abbey, covers the reign, if you will, of the fifth earl, which coincided with World War I.)

One of the aspects of Lady Catherine that I really enjoyed was the warts-and-all treatment of the principle characters. The Countess has endeavored to give her readers a true portrait of the family and the events that affected them, rather than creating a glowing and distorted one. Porchey, for example, does not come off particularly well - he is a poor money manager, a questionable judge of character, and a cheating husband (though a generous ex). And one assumes that his image has softened with the passage of time. Catherine struggles with alcohol and loneliness - more than once she escapes the world by entering a monastery - though she can also be quite spunky in a Debs at War kind of way.

Although I preferred Lady Almina to Lady Catherine, this is still an interesting and worthwhile read for anyone with an interest in English great houses and history. Also, the photos are really great.