Eustace and Hilda: A Trilogy (New York Review Books Classics)

This three novel collection first published in 1944 explores a brother and sister’s coming of age and changing relationship in the English countryside and Venice The three books gathered together as Eustace and Hilda explore a brother and sister’s lifelong relationship. Hilda, the older child, is both self-sacrificing and domineering, as puritanical as she is gorgeous; Eustace is a gentle, dreamy, pleasure-loving boy: the two siblings could hardly be more different, but they are also deeply devoted. And yet as Eustace and Hilda grow up and seek to go their separate ways in a world of power and position, money and love, their relationship is marked by increasing pain. L. P. Hartley’s much-loved novel, the magnum opus of one of twentieth-century England’s best writers, is a complex and spellbinding work: a comedy of upper-class manners; a study in the subtlest nuances of feeling; a poignant reckoning with the ironies of character and fate. Above all, it is about two people who cannot live together or apart, about the ties that bind—and break. The three books gathered together as Eustace and Hilda explore a brother and sister’s lifelong relationship. Hilda, the older child, is both self-sacrificing and domineering, as puritanical as she is gorgeous; Eustace is a gentle, dreamy, pleasure-loving boy: the two siblings could hardly be more different, but they are also deeply devoted. And yet as Eustace and Hilda grow up and seek to go their separate ways in a world of power and position, money and love, their relationship is marked by increasing pain. L. P. Hartley’s much-loved novel, the magnum opus of one of twentieth-century England’s best writers, is a complex and spellbinding work: a comedy of upper-class manners; a study in the subtlest nuances of feeling; a poignant reckoning with the ironies of character and fate. Above all, it is about two people who cannot live together or apart, about the ties that bind—and break. Fiction,Action & Adventure,Historical Set against the background of an immense country estate in Victorian England, a brother and sister struggle with the ever-shifting imbalance of power between them. The title characters are opposites, each bent on proving the other inferior. First, it is the amiable, hedonistic Eustace who depends, though reluctantly, on his opinionated and puritanical older sister. Later, a nervous breakdown and physical collapse force Hilda to rely on her brother, who dedicates himself to restoring her health.In the poignant conclusion, Eustace's devotion proves to be his destruction, and for Hilda, an ambiguous triumph. Like Brideshead Revisited, Hartley's novel astutely evokes the intricacies of upper-class English life in a bygone era. The Shrimp And The Anemone -- Hilda's Letter -- The Sixth Heaven -- Eustace And Hilda. L.p. Hartley ; Introduction By Anita Brookner.