The Herries Chronicles

by Hugh Walpole

The Herries Chronicle

Genres: Historical

912 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1933

About the author

Sir Hugh Seymour Walpole was an English novelist. A prolific writer, he published thirty-six novels, five volumes of short stories, two plays and three volumes of memoirs. His skill at scene-setting, his vivid plots, his high profile as a lecturer and his driving ambition brought him a large readership in the United Kingdom and North America. A best-selling author in the 1920s and 1930s, his works have been neglected since his death.

Reviews

[Patricia Welker · Rating 3 out of 5]

Written in the early twentieth century about the history of an English family that we would characterize as upper-class mostly, this series of novels by Hugh Walpole is good and solid, like the Herries family. A kindle with dictionary is very necessary because there are old English words are used to document the old English civilization. I liked the books because the writing is light as in easy to read about obscure traditions, long gone now. But, since old England is a foreign land from here and now, the story is interesting without being difficult to understand in any way.

[Mary Pimbblet · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a massive collection of books, and includes the unfinished Katherine Christian. If you ignore the unfinished final book, that really feels a departure from the small world of the Herries' family established in the main series, this is a really enjoyable read.
The plots of the books are very much like a soap opera set over the course of hundreds of years, the characters all have that overblown feeling of acting their part in set pieces that vary from the comic to the tragic, with interesting bits of history thrown in. The strength of these books though is the description of the landscape they are set in, Walpole manages to write amazingly poetic descriptions of the lake district, the 'land of stone and sky,' that the actual events of the books becomes secondary to the landscape at times.
It's a really easy to read set of books, that really shows how little people have changed through time.

[Sarah Yardley · Rating 3 out of 5]

The complete Chronicles are over 60 hours of reading and took me, usually a quick reader, over two months to get through. In one sense there is something for everyone: plots and intrigue, characterisations, history, detailed nature descriptions. In another sense there are a lot of words to get through for the best of the writing. That said is was a slow burn and gradually gripped me so I’m glad I persevered and almost felt like I’d lost some friends when I got to the end!