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 “Fresh Air with Terry Gross, January 2, 2014: Interview with Lucy Lethbridge; Review of new Sam Philips' box set; Commentary on Netflix's "micro-genres.", Fresh Air with Terry Gross. Scroll down to 'View online' to hear the audio interview. | |
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 "Opinion Journal: You'll Never Need Windex Again" , Bari Weiss, 20 May 2016, WSJ Video |
Lucy Lethbridge (born Hammersmith, London) is a British author of non-fiction books for children and adults.
Lethbridge is the author of a history of the largest single occupation in 20th century Great Britain: Servants: A Downstairs View of Twentieth Century Britain (Bloomsbury, March 2013). [1] She examines the difficult and changing relationships between employers and domestic workers in the 19th and 20th centuries. [2] [3] Servants in the 19th and 20th century were found in all but the very poorest houses, ranging from a single "skivvy" in a poor household, to country houses whose staff numbered in the hundreds. Lethbridge has drawn from a wide range of both oral and written accounts to create a book that is "empathetic, wide-ranging and well-written". [4] [5]
Drawing on the same research, Lethbridge has also published Spit and Polish: Old-Fashioned Ways to Banish Dirt, Dust and Decay [6] > and Mind your manors : tried-and-true British household cleaning tips. Both how-to books contain traditional household hints and by-gone tricks for looking after homes. These range from the useful to the ridiculous and sometimes the revolting (e.g. "hang the skin of a freshly killed bear in your bedroom.") [7]
Lethbridge has collaborated on a number of history books for children in the "Who was..." series from Short Books, Inc. Ada Lovelace, the Computer Wizard of Victorian Britain, won the Blue Peter Book Award for non-fiction in 2002. [8] Other titles include Annie Oakley : sharpshooter of the Wild West, Henry Smith : his life & legacy, Florence Nightingale, St. Francis of Assisi : the patron saint of animals, and Napoleon. [9]
Lethbridge writes for magazines including The Observer, The Sunday Telegraph , The Independent on Sunday and The Times Literary Supplement . She preceded Sue Gaisford as the Literary Editor of The Tablet [10] and has been a London correspondent for ARTnews in New York. [11] She has been the literary editor of The Catholic Herald , [12] and has edited the collection A Deep but Dazzling Darkness: An Anthology of personal experiences of God with Selina O'Grady. [13]
In publishing, a colophon is a brief statement containing information about the publication of a book such as an "imprint".
Mrs. Beeton's Book of Household Management, also published as Mrs. Beeton's Cookery Book, is an extensive guide to running a household in Victorian Britain, edited by Isabella Beeton and first published as a book in 1861. Previously published in parts, it initially and briefly bore the title Beeton's Book of Household Management, as one of the series of guidebooks published by her husband, Samuel Beeton. The recipes were highly structured, in contrast to those in earlier cookbooks. It was illustrated with many monochrome and colour plates.
A domestic worker or domestic servant is a person who works within a residence and perform a variety of household services for an individual, from providing cleaning and household maintenance, or cooking, laundry and ironing, or care for children and elderly dependents, and other household errands. The term "domestic service" applies to the equivalent occupational category. In traditional English contexts, such a person was said to be "in service".
A butler is a person who works in a house serving and is a domestic worker in a large household. In great houses, the household is sometimes divided into departments with the butler in charge of the dining room, wine cellar, and pantry. Some also have charge of the entire parlour floor and housekeepers caring for the entire house and its appearance. A butler is usually male and in charge of male servants while a housekeeper is usually a woman and in charge of female servants. Traditionally, male servants were better paid and of higher status than female servants. The butler, as the senior male servant, has the highest servant status. He can also sometimes function as a chauffeur.
Upstairs, Downstairs is a British drama television series produced by London Weekend Television (LWT) for ITV. It ran for 68 episodes divided into five series on ITV from 1971 to 1975.
The solar was a room in many English and French medieval manor houses, great houses and castles, mostly on an upper storey, designed as the family's private living and sleeping quarters. Within castles they are often called the "Lords' and Ladies' Chamber" or the "Great Chamber".
A great house is a large house or mansion with luxurious appointments and great retinues of indoor and outdoor staff. The term is used mainly historically, especially of properties at the turn of the 20th century, i.e., the late Victorian or Edwardian era in the United Kingdom and the Gilded Age in the United States.
In great houses, scullery maids were the lowest-ranked and often the youngest of the female domestic servants and acted as assistants to a kitchen maid.
Maureen Patricia Duffy is an English poet, playwright, novelist and non-fiction author. Long an activist covering such issues as gay rights and animal rights, she campaigns especially on behalf of authors. She has received the Benson Medal for her lifelong writings.
Erddig Hall is a Grade-I listed National Trust property near Wrexham, North Wales. Standing 2 miles (3.2 km) south of the city centre, it comprises a country house built, during the 17th and 18th centuries, amidst a 1,900-acre (770 ha) estate, which includes a 1,200-acre (490 ha) landscaped pleasure park and the earthworks of a Norman motte-and-bailey castle.
Persephone Books is an independent publisher based in Bath, England. Founded in 1999 by Nicola Beauman, Persephone Books reprints works largely by women writers of the late 19th and 20th century, though a few books by men are included. The catalogue includes fiction and non-fiction. Most books have a grey dustjacket and endpaper using a contemporaneous design, with a matching bookmark.
Robert J. H. Morrison is a Canadian author, editor, and academic. He is British Academy Global Professor at Bath Spa University and Queen's National Scholar at Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario. A scholar of late eighteenth- and nineteenth-century literature and culture, he is particularly interested in the Regency years (1811–1820), Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Jane Austen, and Thomas De Quincey.
Fiona Ruth Sampson, is a British poet and writer. She is published in thirty-seven languages and has received a number of national and international awards for her writing. A former musician, Sampson has written on the links between music and poetry, and her work has been set to music by several composers. She has received several prizes for her literary biographies and poetry. Notably, Sampson received a MBE for services to literature in 2017.
Downton Abbey is a British historical drama television series set in the early 20th century, created and co-written by Julian Fellowes. It first aired in the United Kingdom on ITV on 26 September 2010 and in the United States on PBS, which supported its production as part of its Masterpiece Classic anthology, on 9 January 2011. The show ran for six series and fifty-two episodes, including five Christmas specials.
Upstairs Downstairs is a British drama series, broadcast on BBC One from 2010 to 2012, and co-produced by BBC Wales and Masterpiece. Created and written by Heidi Thomas, it is a continuation of the London Weekend Television series of the same name, which ran from 1971 to 1975 on ITV.
Margaret Powell was an English writer. Her book about her experiences in domestic service, Below Stairs, became a best-seller and she went on to write other books and became a television personality. Below Stairs was an impetus for Upstairs, Downstairs and the basis of Beryl's Lot, and is one of the inspirations of Downton Abbey.
Myriam Gurba Serrano is an American author, editor, and visual artist. She is best known for her true crime memoir, Mean, and her review, in Tropics of Meta, of American Dirt. She is a co-founder of the grassroots campaign #DignidadLiteraria which "greater inclusion of Chicanx and Latinx authors, editors, and executives, and to combat the exclusion and erasure of Latinx and Chicanx literature within the publishing industry in the USA".
Downton Abbey is a 2019 British historical drama film written by Julian Fellowes, series creator and writer of the television series of the same name, and directed by Michael Engler. The film was produced by Carnival Films and Perfect World Pictures and it continues the storyline from the series, with much of the original cast returning. The film, set in 1927, depicts a royal visit to the Crawley family's stately home in Yorkshire. As royal staff members descend on Downton, an assassin has also arrived and attempts to kill the monarch. The Crawleys and their servants are pitted against the royal entourage, including the queen's lady-in-waiting, who has fallen out with the Crawley family, especially the Dowager Countess, over an inheritance issue.
The Authors Cricket Club is a wandering amateur English cricket club founded in 1892 and revived most recently in 2012. Prominent British writers including Arthur Conan Doyle, P.G. Wodehouse, A.A. Milne and J.M. Barrie have been featured as players on the club team, the Authors XI.
Someone at a Distance is a 1953 novel by the British writer Dorothy Whipple. A French au pair ruthlessly sets out to seduce the husband of her employer and steal him away from her. It was the final novel of Whipple who had been a popular writer in the 1930s and 1940s. It was republished in 1999 by Persephone Books. A dramatization was broadcast on BBC Radio Four in 2022.
Scroll down to 'View online' to hear the audio of the interview.
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