High Rising

  • Author Angela Thirkell
  • Narrator Jilly Bond
  • Publisher Little, Brown Book Group
  • Run Time 7 hours and 9 minutes
  • Format Audio
  • Genre Classic fiction.
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What to expect

Successful novelist Laura Morland and her boisterous son Tony set off to spend Christmas at her country home in the sleepy surrounds of High Rising. But Laura's wealthy friend and neighbour George Knox has taken on a scheming secretary whose designs on marriage to her employer threaten the delicate social fabric of the village. Can clever, practical Laura rescue George from Miss Grey's clutches and, what's more, help his daughter Miss Sibyl Knox to secure her longed-for engagement?

Charming, funny and irresistibly entertaining, High Rising, first published in 1933, was the first of Angela Thirkell's celebrated classic comedies.

Critics Review

Charming, very funny indeed. Angela Thirkell is perhaps the most Pym-like of any twentieth-century author, after Pym herself

Alexander McCall Smith

Appealing

Glasgow Sunday Herald

A smart new edition . . . A terrific holiday story

The Lady

A delightfully entertaining comedy of manners. Full of period charm and witty authorial comment

Good Book Guide

To be so witty and charming yet also so brilliantly brusque and practical as Laura Morland is my new year’s resolution

Pippa Wright, author of The Foster Husband

User Reviews

Book 4.0
Narration 5.0
4.0
5.0
I found this a really enjoyable listen and beautifully narrated by Jilly Bond. It's been described by other readers as a "duvet day book" and I agree and listened to it as a bedtime story. The only thing that jolted me awake a few times was the casual racist slurs that were apparently acceptable in 1933, which I think is when the book was first published. So some things have improved since then, it seems. If you're able to put that into context, the book is still enjoyable, but it took away some of the lightheartedness for me (hence only 4 stars). I also found the relationship dynamics between the female and male characters quite interesting, especially the way the women seemed to try to keep certain things from the men, ostensibly to spare their apparently delicate dispositions (and, I suppose, to spare themselves having to deal with the consequences).
emmay 19/01/2025

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