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| Author | K. M. Peyton |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Victor Ambrus |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Novel |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (UK) & World Publishing Co. (USA) |
| Publication date | September 1967 |
| Publication place | United Kingdom |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| Pages | 193 pp (UK hardback first edition) & 206 pp (US hardback edition) |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-19-271278-0 (UK hardback first edition) Parameter error in {{ISBNT}}: invalid character |
| OCLC | 15590093 |
| Followed by | The Edge of the Cloud |
Flambards is a novel by the English author K. M. Peyton.
The book and its three sequels are set just before, during, and after World War I. The first book, originally published in 1967, tells how the teenage heroine, orphaned heiress Christina Parsons, comes to live at Flambards, the impoverished Essex estate owned by her crippled and tyrannical uncle, William Russell, and his two sons, Mark and Will. Its original sequels were The Edge of the Cloud and Flambards in Summer (both 1969); Flambards Divided (1981) controversially reversed the ending of the original trilogy.
Plot summary
Christina Parsons, who has been shunted around the family since she was orphaned at five years old in 1901, is sent to live at Flambards with her mother's half-brother, the crippled Russell. Her Aunt Grace speculates that Russell plans for Christina to marry his son Mark in order to restore Flambards to its former glory using the money that she will inherit on her twenty-first birthday. Mark is as brutish as his father, with a great love for hunting, whereas the younger son William is terrified of horses and aspires to be an aviator. Christina soon finds friendship with an injured William, who challenges her ideas on class boundaries, as well as a love for horses and hunting. William and Christina eventually fall in love and elope at the end of the first book.
The Edge of the Cloud, the second novel in the series, continues directly from the end of the first book and follows William and Christina's relationship and his aviation, with a back-drop of upcoming war, suffragettes and the death of Mr Dermot and Sandy (William's friends). The book culminates in William and Christina's marriage, with the knowledge that he will join the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) three days after the end of their honeymoon. A widowed Christina gives birth to William's daughter Isobel in Flambards in Summer, and falls in love with Dick (the former stable-lad), who has returned to Flambards to manage the farm. In Flambards Divided, Christina and Dick find soon after their marriage that they want different things in life. He falls in love with Clara, Isobel's nursemaid, and Christina falls in love with Mark who has been changed in the war. Although she states "No-one will ever be the same as William", she ends Flambards Divided happily, with the knowledge that she and Mark will marry as soon as laws are changed so that a man can marry his brother's widow.
References
External links
- Flambards at IMDb
- a Flambards forum
- Flying Dreams - a Flambards fan page
- a Flambards fan page