The Castle on the Hill

Ms. Goudge, as usual gives a very detailed read. One of my favorite authors...she takes to you to another time, her characters are always well thought out! Love her books!

This is actually a piece of WWII propaganda and needs to be read as such. It is locked into its time and place unlike her other timeless books.

Thought provoking book with beautiful writing❤️

Old paperback but in great shape for its age. Arrived very promptly. Great read!

My wife and I both thoroughly enjoy Elizabeth Goudge's books. They are uplifting stories with great character and plot development as well as a lot of wonderful detail about the historical settings.

I love this book, just not the copy I ordered. I am not basing my stars on that however, a very good story. My daughters both love this book too.

Not my favorite and I'm a big fan. Good but not her best work, in my opinion.

Elizabeth Goudge, now remembered mostly for her children's masterpiece "The Little White Horse", but whose many adult novels and now profoundly enjoyed by only a small readership ought to be much better known."The Castle on the Hill" was published in May 1942, after the disasters of Dunkirk and the Fall of France, and the Battle of Britain and the Blitz, but before the major turning points (Stalingrad, Alamein, Midway, Guadalcanal, Milne Bay) that indicated possible victory over Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan.Elizabeth Goudge was 42, and her central female character Miss Brown (we are told her Christian name, Dolores, once, but otherwise she is "Miss Brown" all the time) is the same age as Goudge, and, like Goudge, unmarried, with no prospects of marrying.Although Elizabeth Goudge is sometimes pigeon-holed as a "Romance" writer, this is NOT accurate, and in the case of "The Castle on the Hill", quite wrong. This is NOT a "Romance", even though there are appearances of half-happy endings -- not to spoil the complex plot too much.The Castle on the Hill opens with six chapters (pp 8 to 114 – more than a third of the book) that describe, at length and in detail, the first active day of the story, while also including events from earlier stages in the lives of the central characters, and their ancestors, and the castle of the title. At times the narrative cuts from one scene to another, within the day, in a cinematic way. The focus shifts from one character to another, and then returns to the first character, and so on. Later, the narrative jumps by weeks, or months, from summer, through autumn, into early snowy winter. The whole story spans from June to late November or early December, in 1940, a climactic time in World War II, that started in early September 1939.By the end of this first day we have met: Miss Brown, the central female character; Jo Isaacson, arguably the main male character; Charles Birley and his two great-nephews, Richard and Stephen; the Birley’s, or originally Beaulieu’s ancestors, dating back to William the Conqueror’s arrival in England in 1066; Boulder, the Birley’s butler and man-servant; Mrs Heather, the Birley’s elderly widowed gate-keeper; two small children evacuated from London, known as Moppet and Poppet, Prunella Maxwell, the granddaughter of the Birley’s doctor, and the Birley’s dog, Argos. We also meet, briefly, Richard’s horse, Golden Arrow, and Maria, Prunella’s smaller and older horse. Typically of Goudge’s novels, the animals are also (minor) characters. We also meet Mr Holly, a railway guard, and his wife, and Mrs Baxter, the mother of Moppet and Poppet, and we hear a little of Miss Brown’s parents, James, a commercial traveller selling hardware (fire irons and coal scuttles), and Agnes, devoted to romantic novels – both deceased before the story begins.This first day in the novel is a long day. Daylight lingers for hours, mainly because of the usual Daylight Saving system, also known as British Summer Time, when clocks are set one hour earlier than Greenwich Mean Time, the longitudinal standard clock-setting for autumn, winter and early spring. (British Double Summer Time, with clocks advanced two hours during summer and one hour for the rest of the year did not begin in Britain until the summer of 1941, at which time daylight lingered even longer, of course.)The novel is threaded with recurring themes and images. The themes include fear, patriotism, love and sex, history, Christianity, fantasy, patriotism, and intertextuality, the connectedness of this story and its characters with other stories and books and authors. Despite the sombre mood of this war-time novel, there are occasional moments of warm, gentle humour.The next outline does contain plot-spoilers. (Sorry!) But with Goudge the page-turning interest is not a matter of suspense and mystery and thrilling adventure, but finding, carefully, and steadily, WHO will connect with WHOM, and HOW will this happen, and WHY? In fact, often the WHO will be fairly obvious as soon as characters are introduced. But because Goudge creates interesting and appealing characters, readers will quickly feel these people in the novel are like friends, and readers will want to hear the news these friends have.The actions of the novel occur between late June in 1940, and December of that year. Shortly before the start of the Battle of Britain, independently, two adults and two young children, travel by train from London to Torhaven, a (fictional) coastal town in south-west England. The female adult travelling on the train is hired as a housekeeper by another traveller on the train, an older man whose family own and occupy an ancient castle and manor house near Torhaven, on the southwest coast of England. She also takes charge of the two young children, evacuated from London. The male adult, a Jewish refugee from Europe (although originally born in England) and a professional musician, had boarded with the children’s family in London, and, coincidentally, becomes acquainted with the youngest member of the family who own and live in the castle. The older young man in the family, who owns the castle, is a pilot in the Royal Air Force. He is killed during a morning patrol. His younger brother, a pacifist and conscientious objector, works in London in the rescue service. The castle is accidentally destroyed when a German bomber jettisons its bomb-load. Two old servants, and an old dog, are killed. The survivors of the bombing, including the girlfriend of the RAF pilot, who is the former girlfriend of the pacifist brother, form new relationships, resolved to continue their personal fights against the Germans.Finally, for now, it should also be noted that Elizabeth Goudge, the only-child daughter of a Church of England priest and academic theologian, was herself a deeply religious person and often writes about characters who are similarly concerned with issues of faith and prayer, hope and despair, and trying to find how to be the kind of good person they believe they ought to be, and that God wants them to be. This does not make the characters pious or Bible-bashing. Goudge is only as religious, as an author, as Graham Greene, or T.S. Eliot, for example.This is the only novel Goudge wrote during World War II that was set in World War II, and that directly paralleled some of her own experience during the war. (Other, later novels, such as the last two books in the "Damrosehay" trilogy, and "The Scent of Water", and "The Rosemary Tree", include remembered experiences from the war, but were written after the war ended.)I could say much more about the novel, but hope this will be strongly encouraging!!It is very highly recommended, and rewards careful and thoughtful reading. You will be moved, and uplifted, and, be assured, it is a heart-warming story, with animals and ghosts!John Gough -- Deakin University (retired) -- [email protected]

It's a pity these are not available new as they are very well written. Goudge always manages to tease out the thoughts and motives of the characters in her novels so that the reader really understands how they 'tick' and why they react to the situations they find themselves in.The Scent of Water is the only Elizabeth Goudge novel that has been recently republished though her childrens books (eg 'The Little White Horse') are possibly better known.

Loved this book.

One of my favourite books, so pleased to replace my lost copy!