Thrumpton Hall

by Seymour, Miranda

• ISBN13: 9780061466588
• ISBN10: 0061466581
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publications

Summary

"Dear Thrumpton, how I miss you tonight." When twenty-one-year-old George Seymour wrote these words in 1944, the object of his affection was not a young woman but the beautiful country house in Nottinghamshire that he desired above all else. Miranda Seymour would later be raised at Thrumpton Hall-her upbringing far from idyllic, as life revolved around her father's odd capriciousness. The house took priority over everything, even his family-until the day when George Seymour, in his golden years, began dressing in black leather and riding powerful motorbikes around the countryside in the company of surprising friends.A biography and family memoir by turns hilarious and heart-wrenching, Miranda Seymour's Thrumpton Hall is a riveting, frequently shocking, and ultimately unforgettable true story of the devastating consequences of obsessive desire and misplaced love.

Author Biography

Miranda Seymour is the author of many acclaimed and bestselling works of fiction and nonfiction, including biographies of Mary Shelley, Robert Graves, Henry James, and, most recently, the pioneer French racing driver Helle Nice. She lives in England.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	p. xi
Author's note	p. xiii
Family tree	p. xviii
Prologue	p. 1
The House: Obsession
Dick and Vita	p. 11
Exile	p. 24
The House	p. 30
The Boy	p. 43
A Public-School Boy	p. 56
A Good War	p. 60
Literary Connections: 2006	p. 77
Shadows under the Cedars	p. 86
False Trails	p. 98
Welsh Connections	p. 106
Reading Romance	p. 116
Nearer, My House, to Thee	p. 125
The Fulfilment of a Dream	p. 141
The House: Possession
I Hate and I Love (The Lists My Father Never Made)	p. 157
Family Snaps	p. 162
A Question of Appearance	p. 177
Betrayal	p. 189
On the Road	p. 205
Cherry Orchard Blues	p. 220
Ganymede	p. 236
The House Divided	p. 252
Epilogue	p. 269
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