Love at All Ages

Barsetshire #28

by Angela Thirkell

Love and marriage — and delightful eccentrics — thrive in Angela Thirkell’s fictitious English county of Barsetshire. In this novel, Lady Gwendolyn Harcourt, sister of the Duke of Towers, marries elderly Rev. Oriel of Harefield, while a romance prospers between Lord Mellings and Lavinia Merton. “Thirkell’s gently meandering account of the diversions of Barsetshire society leaves nothing to be desired.” — New York Herald Tribune

Genres: Fiction, British Literature

323 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1959

About the author

Angela Margaret Mackail was born on January 30, 1890 at 27 Young Street, Kensington Square, London. Her grandfather was Sir Edward Burne-Jones the pre-Raphaelite painter and partner in the design firm of Morris and Company for whom he designed many stained glass windows - seven of which are in St Margaret's Church in Rottingdean, West Sussex. Her grandmother was Georgiana Macdonald, one of a precocious family which included among others, Stanley Baldwin, the Prime Minister, and Rudyard Kipling. Angela's brother, Denis Mackail, was also a prolific and successful novelist. Angela's mother, Margaret Burne-Jones, married John Mackail - an administrator at the Ministry of Education and Professor of Poetry at Oxford University.

Angela married James Campbell McInnes in 1911. James was a professional Baritone and performed at concert halls throughout the UK. In 1912 their first son Graham was born and in 1914 a second son, Colin. A daughter was born in 1917 at the same time her marriage was breaking up. In November 1917 a divorce was granted and Angela and the children went to live with her parents in Pembroke Gardens in London. The child, Mary, died the next year.

Angela then met and married George Lancelot Thirkell in 1918 and in 1920 they traveled on a troop ship to George's hometown in Australia. Their adventures on the "Friedricksruh" are recounted in her Trooper to the Southern Cross published in 1934. In 1921, in Melbourne Australia, her youngest son Lancelot George was born. Angela left Australia in 1929 with 8 year old Lance and never returned. Although living with her parents in London she badly needed to earn a living so she set forth on the difficult road of the professional writer. Her first book, Three Houses, a memoir of her happy childhood was published in 1931 and was an immediate success. The first of her novels set in Trollope's mythical county of Barsetshire was Demon in the House, followed by 28 others, one each year.

Angela also wrote a book of children's stories entitled The Grateful Sparrow using Ludwig Richter's illustrations; a biography of Harriette Wilson, The Fortunes of Harriette; an historical novel, Coronation Summer, an account of the events in London during Queen Victoria's Coronation in 1838; and three semi-autobiographical novels, Ankle Deep and Oh, These Men, These Men and Trooper to the Southern Cross. When Angela died on the 29th of January 1961 she left unfinished the last of her books, Three Score and Ten which was completed by her friend, Caroline LeJeune. Angela is buried in Rottingdean alongside her daughter Mary and her Burne-Jones grandparents.

Reviews

[Mary Durrant · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love Angela Thirkell.

Read all you can .........you'll like them better.

I loved Ludo in this one being the last of the series.
Told with gentle humour , wit and charm.
I loved it!

[Kris Larson]

Certainly not her best, often repetitive, constantly rehashing scenes from earlier books (but all her later books do this). Still, it's nice to feel I've drunk every drop of Barsetshire that the world has to offer me, and for that alone this book is worth reading.

Side note: anyone else notice the howler about Martin Leslie missing a foot? It's Robin Dale who's missing a foot, Mrs. Thirkell! Martin just had a limp! But if you think about how many ongoing characters there are by this time, it's really pretty impressive that she doesn't make this kind of mistake more often.

[Alisha · Rating 3 out of 5]

In Thirkell's last completed novel, she tends to repeat herself somewhat. But the characters are the same likeable bunch they always have been, though the primary ones are now seen as firmly middle-aged, with their children taking a more active role.

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

This one takes some dedication. The last book that Angela Thirkell fully completed (the next in the series was finished by someone else after her death), Love At All Ages can certainly try one’s patience. Mrs Morland isn’t the only character who seems to be talking in circles, and Thirkell’s own digressions take up even more space than usual. Ditto for endless quotations, in English, French, Latin, and Italian.

Lest one forget that Ludo, Lord Mellings, blossomed when the Aubrey Clovers encouraged him to sing during Coronation summer—well one can’t actually forget, as Thirkell mentions it every few pages.

Young Lord Mellings (now at Sandhurst) emerges as a main character in the second half of the book, and here and there one sees Thirkell’s skills in writing younger characters come to life. The book includes several coherent storylines, even if the setting devolves into just back and forth visits between the Mertons and the Pomfrets, with sometimes more quotation reciting than actual dialogue.

Readers get a taste of the pressures Thirkell felt as a writer when she has her alter ego, Mrs Morland, say of her books: “I HATE having to write them and I would sooner DIE, but I can’t afford not to, so every year I very ANGRILY write another one. I like reading them afterwards, but really, I often wish I were a Kept Woman.”

A little sad to see Thirkell ending the series on less than a high note, but after 28 books in 28 years, one can forgive a lot.

[Lj Neame · Rating 3 out of 5]

Her last novel. As any Thirkell reader knows, the later in the series, the less the chance of finding the nuggets that make her books such a pleasure. Here we find the same characters, engaged in the same activities. It begins with several of them, including Mrs. Morland, of all people, meeting to decide on the establishment of a pony club. It is soon apparent that no one knows anything about ponies, nor do they know any families with young people who might be interested in riding them so the comversation moves on to other topics. Thirkell rehashes so much old ground so many times in this novel, essentially telling the same anecdote again and again, always charmingly but boredom does set in after a while. There is usually one or two set pieces in each novel that enchant, and even this novel has one. Young Ludo gallantly offers the aged (to him), Mrs. Morland a hand as she walks, which gives her, and the author, an opportunity for mental reflection on how annoying it is to be offered help you have no desire to accept, and how difficult it is to turn it down, or accept it, gracefully. It is these tiny touches that have kept me reading over the years. The title would seem to refer to the marriage of a Duke's daughter in her forties, to a Curate (of course of good family). Little passion is involved. Then there is the budding romance of Ludovic, (20 year old son of Lord Pomfret) and 16 year old Lucinda, daughter of some titled peron, I forget which. They enjoy messing about in boats, but things really heat up when she bends forward to kiss his cheek before he rides off in his motor car.

[Caro · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a later Thirkell, which usually means less good, but not this time. She seems to be in a mellow mood, with less sniping and more affectionate revisiting of old, familiar characters.


Reread in January, 2018

[LDuchess]

Hardbound--Knopf Borzoi Book, 1959 (not this cover)
Ludo grows up!

[Janice · Rating 4 out of 5]

Her last complete Barsetshire book. Full of her own divagations, but a pleasure, as always.

[Leslie · Rating 2 out of 5]

2½ stars. OK entry in Thirkell's Barsetshire series but not as good as the earlier ones.

[Mbuye · Rating 3 out of 5]

Perhaps the least interesting of them all, Angela Thirkell's Barsetshire series draws to a close with this tired pairing off of the elderly Mr Oriel with the Duke of Towers's sister, Lady Gwendolen, who has always shown an interest in clergymen. Edith Graham, now her sister-in-law, has her first child christened. Sadly, we begin to see early signs of dementia in the lovely Lady Graham, Edith's mother, who captivated us throughout the series. Lavinia Merton, the flighty daughter of Sir Noel and Lady Lydia Merton finds her soulmate in the unlikely Lord Mellings.

It is as if Thirkell knows her dazzling wit, which sustained her in the pre-war books, became bleak during the six years of war, and vanished during the years of domestic shortages and increased taxation, tolling the end of her class and breed. Nonetheless, her skill in character drawing remained almost to the very end. Here, however, it is as if she were bidding a final goodbye to the earliest people on her stage, and inviting us to do the same.

[Kat · Rating 3 out of 5]

Happy to have discovered Ms. T while browsing my library shelves. Have to read earlier books to appreciate this one.

[Jocelyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

For some time now, Angela Thirkell has been running out of people to marry off. Still, she scrounges out two couples--one quite young, and one much older. Love at all ages.

[Pastor Ben · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was expecting a bit of a dud as this is Thirkell's last and I've had that experience with other authors, but this one was pretty good.

[Joanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A gentle farewell to Barsetshire and all of our old friends.

[Priscilla · Rating 4 out of 5]

Classic Thirkell with a return of many of our favorite characters as well as her frequent asides. Very entertaining.