Originally published in 1948, Love Among the Ruins is a clever and quintessentially British classic in Angela Thirkell's beloved Barsetshire series. Now available as a Virago Modern Classic.
'You read her, laughing, and want to do your best to protect her characters from any reality but their own' New York Times
It's 1947, and peacetime has brought new challenges to Barsetshire. Beliers Priory, once a military hospital during the War, has now become a flourishing prep school for boys run by Leslie and Philip Winter.
When Charles Belton is hired as the new schoolmaster, the scene is set for a tangle of flirtations and misunderstandings as six young people are thrown together: Charles and his elder brother, Captain Freddy Belton; Susan Dean, now Red Cross Depot Librarian, and her glamorous sister Jessica, an actress in thrall to the theatre; pragmatic Lucy Marling and her brother Oliver. And with the old social rules in ruins, it's bound to be a delicious summer of comic - and romantic - possibilities.
[thumbnails of CHEERFULNESS BREAKS IN, MARLING HALL, GROWING UP, THE HEADMISTRESS, MISS BUNTING, PEACE BREAKS OUT]