Eustace and Hilda

Eustace and Hilda #1-3

by L.P. Hartley, Anita Brookner (Introduction)

The three books gathered together as Eustace and Hilda explore a brother and sister's lifelong relationship. Hilda, the older child, is both self-sacrificing and domineering, as puritanical as she is gorgeous; Eustace is a gentle, dreamy, pleasure-loving the two siblings could hardly be more different, but they are also deeply devoted. And yet as Eustace and Hilda grow up and seek to go their separate ways in a world of power and position, money and love, their relationship is marked by increasing pain.

L. P. Hartley's much-loved novel, the magnum opus of one of twentieth-century England's best writers, is a complex and spellbinding a comedy of upper-class manners; a study in the subtlest nuances of feeling; a poignant reckoning with the ironies of character and fate. Above all, it is about two people who cannot live together or apart, about the ties that bind—and break.

Genres: Fiction, Classics, British Literature, Literary Fiction, Historical Fiction, 20th Century, Novels

876 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1947

About the author

Leslie Poles Hartley (1895-1972) was born in Whittlesey, Cambridgeshire, and educated at Harrow and Balliol College, Oxford. For more than thirty years from 1923 he was an indefatigable fiction reviewer for periodicals including the Spectator and Saturday Review. His first book, Night Fears (1924) was a collection of short stories; but it was not until the publication of Eustace and Hilda (1947), which won the James Tait Black prize, that Hartley gained widespread recognition as an author. His other novels include The Go-Between (1953), which was adapted into an internationally-successful film starring Julie Christie and Alan Bates, and The Hireling (1957), the film version of which won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival.

Reviews

[Ellie Hamilton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing!!! A new favourite!! Review to follow, Goodreads deleted some of my Owned books TBR shelf so too tired now 🤣

[Chrissie · Rating 4 out of 5]

So what's this about? The close relationship between a brother and sister. This is not something I can relate to in my own family. The strength of this book is found in the author's ability to make their relationship come alive for me, and individual without similar experiences, without a similar background. The prose is alternately evocative, lyrical, humorous or thought provoking.

How shall I convince you? Examples, quotes taken from the text. Here follow a few:

"Apart from the suffering, such an experience has its value....I've never regretted an experience I've had."

"Truths don't soothe sore hearts."

"Authors often finish books but not as often as they begin them."

"Barbara populated the house. Her warm, contagious presence penetrated its coldest corners."

"People don't love in quite the same way when they grow up."

"Each leaf caught meant a month of happiness." You too must remember similar childhood games!

"This was a mock battle, only in fun, as things could be only in fun before the war."

"...and the clouds were at rest in a heaven of tender, gauzy blue. They walked to the house...its windows fiery from the sun, its walls a deeper red."

I am going through a rough time in my life. I listened to this on walks and at night as I lie unable to sleep. Sometimes, I fall asleep. Sometimes my mind has gotten off track. As a result, I have listened to much of the text multiple times. I have rewinded ad rewinded over and over again. What I am saying is, I have enjoyed listening to the words, listening multiple times has given me enjoyment. Enjoyment sorely needed. The text has cap0tured my interest, given me food for thought, drawn me out of my own problems.

The atmosphere and feel of Venice is wonderfully drawn. Memories of travels there came flooding back. The setting is northern rural England bordering Wales as well as Venice. Timewise, except when Eustace and Hilda are young, it is after the First World War. The book isn't related to history; it is instead about the siblings' personalities, what makes them tick, to what extent they rely on each other and what they do for each other.

Roger Davis narrates the audiobook very well. Four stars for the narration. I loved when the Venetians were speaking. Dialogs sound genuine. Some sections are stiff, but every word is crystal clear. I love his intonation for an elderly woman who plays a central role.

I wholeheartedly recommend this book.

********************

*The Go-Between 2 stars
*Eustace and Hilda 4 strs

[Sathya Sekar · Rating 4 out of 5]

It has been a while since I completed reading this trilogy. I read the first book separately and having much enjoyed it, starting hunting for the sequels. It was almost three years later that I found to my delight, the trilogy edition.

Though I recall snatches only of the plot, what has endured in great detail is the flawed characters of Eustace and Hilda. That is perhaps the intent of Mr.Hartley as well. Through various plots, sone of them unnecessarily long, what we eventually discover is something more about the brother and sister and their relationship. It is extremely difficult to fit one adjective to either of them. You cannot help but like them and despite their weaknesses, find them very interesting. But they are also maddeningly selfish and weak.

The trilogy is a very intimate character study of Eustace and Hilda through their childhood to adulthood. There is little to enjoy by way of plots, but I would recommend this book for those who enjoy the leisure pace, slow development and beautiful prose characteristic of many great authors (especially British) of the earlier half of the 20th century.

[CQM · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a review for the final part of the trilogy also titled Eustace and Hilda. I've reviewed the first two parts elsewhere.
This final part brings everything back to the beginning, indeed after the majority of the book takes place in Venice with seemingly nothing happening the last section of the book takes us almost in reverse order back to the beginning of the first installment.
Like the first two parts this book takes place almost entirely in Eustace's mind. From the most dramatic of incidents down to the smallest of details Eustace agonises over everything. He lives in fear of not living up to the lowest of expectations, he has a morbid desire to please his sister Hilda and to avoid offending people. He constantly worries about having said or done the wrong thing no matter how small or inconsequential.
He can be an immensely frustrating character, you want to grip him by the shoulders and shake some sense into him but don't, he's physically frail too... For a moment towards the end he threatens to break the mould he's been cast in but we can all see it's a futile act of rebellion on his part, an act barely noticed by anyone.
I think for many people their strength of tolerance for people like Eustace may be the deciding factor as to either loving or hating this book. But love it or hate it L.P. Hartley's skill cannot be denied, as in The Go-Between he gets inside his protagonists head and delves around digging up purest nuggets of truth. In The Go-Between the protagonist was a child, and in the opening book of this trilogy Eustace is a child and I think that is why those two books are so outstanding, Hartley seems to have been able to recall childhood fears, dreams and more with astounding accuracy and in the second and third books here Eustace is little more than a child. He's not backwards, he's not stupid, but he has never outgrown those childhood worries, his weak heart has led him to be cosseted and his sister Hilda has, partly unwittingly, exerted an unhealthy pull on Eustace. Hilda is little seen in this final book but throughout she acts as an anchor on Eustace, weighing him down and keeping him stuck in his childhood position of sickly little brother.
It's a beautiful, heartbreaking book that slowly, very slowly, takes us to the only possible conclusion of the story. A conclusion that we've all been expecting since reading the opening chapter of The Shrimp and the Anemone.

[Emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

An old-fashioned novel in the very best sense of the word: psychological, philosophical, funny, and heartbreaking. It's slow-moving, as these types of books often are (don't pick if up if you're looking for an action-packed adventure), but it's one of those books that makes the reader very picky about what follows it as far as fiction goes.

[Lawrence · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book for the summer: endless, and I was always glad to have a chance to read it. Completely absorbing: perfect for long bus or train rides, or spending the entire afternoon in a hammock.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

So, I really, really, really, really loved this. Is it possible to feel nostalgia for a time in which you didn’t live and for a childhood that wasn’t yours?

Eustace and Hilda is a beautifully written novel (actually, it’s a one-volume trilogy, and quite lengthy because of that) that follows the lives of a brother and sister from their childhood through early adulthood. More than that, however, it’s an evocation of early 20th century England, done in such a way that I feel like I’ve actually been there. It’s a wonderful world to live in, for a time at least.

Hilda and Eustace are close in age, although Hilda is the older and more dominant sibling. At the start of the first novel, Eustace is deathly afraid of an older disabled woman. Hilda forces him to confront his fear by speaking to her, and thereby sets in motion all the events—both good and ill—of the remaining three volumes. To write much more would be to spoil.

But make no mistake—this is one of those books that is all about character development, and the story, even though it’s very interesting, exists to delineate the relationship between the title characters. At times, this means it gets a little draggy (especially the second book in the trilogy. Way more time is spent in Venice than is necessary). Overall, though, I can’t recommend this highly enough and suspect I’ll be returning to it often over the years.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to the seaside to look for an anemone....

[Kristen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love Hartley's most famous novel, The Go-Between, so I decided to try out this much more obscure trilogy. Eustace and Hilda reads like one long novel depicting a too-close relationship between the titular brother and sister over the course of their lives. Like the Go-Between, Eustace and Hilda showcases Hartley's strengths: elegant prose, vivid (and sometimes sinister) depictions of the natural world, and excellent development of setting. I did feel like the psychology of this book was slightly lacking. Hilda's character seemed unreasonably malevolent for no real reason, and the negativity surrounding her relationship with Eustace was sometimes a bit hysterical. Because of that, I enjoyed the book at a bit of a superficial level, coasting through a fantasy of Edwardian and post-WWI England and taking the story at face value despite its flaws.

[Bori · Rating 5 out of 5]

(I saw bits of myself in Eustace till the very end. A little in love with Antony. Made me miss the sea.) Beautiful, beautiful.

[JimZ · Rating 3 out of 5]

When I read this I did not rate it...I am not sure why not. I think it was probably 3.5 stars. It was well worth the read....quite long...864 pages for the NYRB edition!

[Berit · Rating 5 out of 5]

This novel is fantastic. Two-thirds into the book, Eustace, the protagonist, is engaged in conversation with his friend Lady Nelly:

“Eustace searched in his mind. ‘If I look cheerful it’s because of the present you are going to give me.’
‘I won’t refuse you a present,’ said Lady Nelly, ‘since you ask me, but this is for your sister, you know.’
Eustace’s face turned redder. ‘That was a slip of the tongue,’ he muttered miserably. ‘When I said “me” I meant Hilda. You see, it’s the same thing’” (599).

This, in a nutshell, is what the book is about.

From the time they are little, Eustace and his older sister Hilda are fully dedicated to each other. They play together, but their bond goes deeper than that: to Hilda, Eustace is a kind of project she wants to bring to completion. She is forever encouraging him to be better and do more; to improve himself and be more ambitious. To Eustace, her meddling is welcome — he is deeply indecisive, prone to anxiety, and insecure, and Hilda has none of those attributes. It’s as if they only function properly when they’re together.
This book, then -- which is really three novels in one — is a study of their relationship, both in childhood and young adulthood.

Hartley’s writing is of a rare quality. Not only does he manage to keep one’s attention for 756 pages with very little action, but he is a master of implication.
So much of what happens in this book is implied, rather than said. And while most good writers have that skill, Hartley is exceptional at it.
Take, for example, the opening scene of the novel. This scene, the “shrimp and anemone” scene after which the first novel of the trilogy is named, is integral to the entire narrative. In one scene, Hartley manages to 1. paint a precise, exquisite picture of both Hilda and Eustace, and their relationship, through metaphor; 2. lay the foundation for many future events; and 3. Foreshadow.
Each of these things, on their own, could become gimmicky or heavy-handed. The fact that Hartley does all three and it doesn’t become either is a testament of his abilities.
Only midway through the whole book did I realize the opening scene was metaphorical! And towards the end, its implication can no longer be denied…which then creates a whole new tension, just when you think things are going well.

Absolutely fantastic. And to think he stopped writing this book several times! And that the first part of it was initially rejected!
WILD.
Eventually, this trilogy solidified his reputation as a writer, and rightfully so.

I’m just in awe of the “ease” of this story. Nothing about it feels forced or unnatural — OK, maybe the plentiful Italian dialogue in part three could be toned down a little. But story-wise, this book is just masterful. I have no other word for it.
There are pages of dialogue, and pages of internal thought, and neither ever becomes boring or trite. How did he manage it? I’m fascinated.

I also love the way all characters are so distinctly different — each really has his or her own voice, a full personality, and clear flaws and strengths that (again) do not feel forced or tacked on. They are real people, each and every one of them.

As a result, I actually started to love some of them even though they initially annoyed me a little: Barbara, for one, and Antony. They are both so extraverted in different ways, it drove me a little crazy. But slowly, over time, I started to appreciate them. As I got to “know” them, I could see their strengths — especially Barbara’s. Her happy-go-lucky nature makes her seem so flat and superficial at first, but in reality it’s a life force. She brings light to Hilda and Eustace’s lives, and to others’ as well. I loved seeing that, and I loved how Hartley manages to convey that.

In closing, some of my favorite passages and sentences, though this book contains many more worth remembering:

“She did not look at him when she spoke, and her remarks had no bearing on what he said: they scratched the silence with spindly, jagged lines that left no pattern behind. She darted from topic to topic as if playing Blindman’s Buff with boredom” (566).

“Yes, it breaks the crust — you know what I mean — and lets the song pour out. I’ve never regretted any experience that I’ve had. But I’ve regretted a good many that I’ve missed” (616).

“When the snarl of the word ‘larva’ ceased to tear at his mind, the silence bit into the sore place like acid” (630).

“It was like being in a theatre when the lights went down. The window was the proscenium arch and the night the stage. The darkness crowded against the window panes; beyond the lattice it thinned away into the silvery blue of the moonlit sky.
The party sat passive and expectant, looking out, awaiting some development on the shadowy earth or in the luminous sky. But none came, and the thought crossed Eustace’s mind, ‘Perhaps it is we who are on the stage, and the night is looking in at us with its thousand eyes, waiting for us to do something.’ But it was not for him, he felt, to open the play, and he sat listening to the silence which had become like a presence in the room” (423).

“Eustace looked up from the bottom of the abyss. Truth lay there, as Lady Nelly said (…). There were a great may words, and thoughts, and shapes, like rocks, dark and slippery with seaweed, but with jagged edges, strewn on the floor of the abyss. His mind ventured near them and found they were not so strange as he thought. Indeed, to one part of his mind they were curiously familiar. Could he have seen them, one day when he looked over the edge? Had he always known they were there, and ignored them?” (633).

Other things I want to remember: the billiard-fives game at Anchorstone Hall, Dick and Hilda leaving on an aeroplane, and the atmosphere in the house afterwards, Antony continuing to converse with Eustace as he is getting undressed for his bath, the oppressive yet enticing Venice atmosphere among Lady Nelly’s social circle, the “larva” scene, the entirety of the final chapters, especially the one titled “the experiment on the cliff.”

I read The Go-Between over ten years ago, and I always loved that one. But this trilogy, this Eustace and Hilda - it’s now way up there with my favorites as well.

[Kevin Adams · Rating 4 out of 5]

L. P. Hartley’s beauty of childhood and adolescence. Eustace and Hilda are kids (at the beginning of the book) that have a relationship unlike any other. Through the decades we see them grow together and apart. Incredibly visual. Hartley can place the reader in every scene from the hills of Cambo to Oxford all the way to Venice. The other Hartley book I read, The Go-Between is a masterpiece. This came real close.

[Gil The Bright · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Eustace and Hilda Trilogy

The Shrimp and the Anemone 4.5*
The Sixth Heaven 3.5*
Eustace and Hilda 4*

”It seemed as though his nerves that had seen him through a crisis failed him in a calm.”

[Mbuye · Rating 5 out of 5]

At the heart of L.P. Hartley’s masterpiece lies a suffocating, uneven architecture of sibling devotion, where the eponymous Hilda’s fierce protective instincts function as both a sanctuary and a psychological prison for her fragile brother, Eustace.

The entire trilogy, Eustace and Hilda (1947), remains a towering achievement of social satire and psychological analysis, shot through with class distinctions and a profound, lingering irony.

The three pillars of this work begin with The Shrimp and the Anemone (1944), which sets the tone for the tragedy to follow.

Under the cloak of a protective elder sister, Hilda dominates her little brother to the point of a rare rebellion. Caught in the rain during his defiant game of hare and hounds, Eustace contracts an illness that permanently damages his heart. This gives Hilda an ultimate leverage to police his health and moral rectitude through the lens of his own disobedience.

In this opening volume, Hartley establishes a profound psychological truth, treating children as individual personalities rather than miniature adults. When Hilda imitates adult behaviour to win their approval or to dominate the nursery, permanent changes to her future conduct are the inevitable result.

Conversely, Eustace evolves into a moral and physical weakling. Where a normal boy would simply defy an older sister, fear and hate of Hilda battle within Eustace for the rest of his life.

At this point, Hartley introduces the first of several traps for Eustace: a bequest of £18,000, which is roughly equivalent to over £1.8 million in today's money, from Miss Fothergill, an elderly, wheelchair-bound lady whom Eustace is forced to visit weekly at Hilda’s fierce insistence to ensure his moral development. (Hilda herself, however, avoids the old lady, viewing her as a witch.)

Eustace finds liberation and space in her company, while Miss Fothergill finds him to be of unexpected comfort. Since he is the one person who has nothing to ask of her, and who obviously enjoys her quiet interest in him, they establish a powerful rapport without the suffocating presence of the Calvinistic Hilda.

Miss Fothergill’s bequest is something of a Dead Sea fruit. Hilda and Aunt Sarah, their father's sister, object strongly to a small boy inheriting so much wealth. They lay a heavy sense of guilt on Eustace, reminding him that he didn't “earn the money.” After all, he only visited the house under duress and spent his time eating delicious cakes; there was no rational reason why she should leave him an enormous fortune upon her death.

The aunt and niece insist the inheritance be surrendered to the poor nurse-companion, who had expected a windfall for her unfailing devotion to the old lady.

When Mr Cherrington puts his foot down among his womenfolk, insisting the money is meant for Eustace alone and intended solely for an Oxford education, which Cherrington himself, as a struggling coal merchant, could never have afforded, he springs the trap that Miss Fothergill and Hartley have set.

In the second book, The Sixth Heaven (1946), Eustace has moved from childhood to young adulthood as a wealthy Oxford undergraduate. Even with so little experience in life, Eustace recognises in the young men who constitute this world a certain air of confidence that comes only from knowing who your grandfather’s grandfather was, an air that Eustace himself lacks, though he is richer than his “friends.”

In their company, Eustace learns that gentlemen do not work, they appreciate the good things of life instead: beauty, good food and wine, and aesthetics. He learns to be effete, even lazy, as he takes little exercise, due to his “heart condition,” as Hilda constantly reminds him, even in her absent presence, through her letters.

And in Eustace, a lower-middle-class child who has been thrust into wealth, the loss of childhood’s innocence is offset by envy of the golden youth about him, who live in grand homes and with great people, whose equal he can never be. Above all, their sisters are not Hilda.

Despite the advice of his father, and his father's lawyer, Eustace had insisted on sharing the bequest with his older sister. Eustace might have given her half, or even the whole, such had been the effect of guilt over an “unearned” gift, but his advisers prudently limited the amount sufficient to educate and later train Hilda as a nurse. Hilda takes the money as her due although, to be fair, she is not a money-minded girl.

However, she is so possessive of Eustace’s health and his moral character that his friends in college begin to be curious about her. All they learn is that she is more than just pretty, she runs a clinic (the purchase of which Eustace has, of course, subsidised), that she is efficient and devoted to Eustace, who is like a pale snail next to her. In particular, Stephen Hilliard, Eustace's special friend, who eventually becomes a lawyer, has endless questions about this mysterious beautiful girl.

And now a young MP enters Oxford and engages with his old school and college friends, and almost-forgotten neighbours. Dick Staveley, MP, of Staveley Park, having long ago seen brother and sister on the beach at Anchorstone, recalls Eustace and his pretty sister and casually invites them both to a weekend house party at his estate.

Eustace, now a determined social climber, accepts at once. He secretively discerns in this grand gesture a golden chance to liberate himself from his sister's domestic tyranny, while simultaneously doing Hilda a magnificent favour if she could only be installed as the mistress of Staveley.

Yet at her clinic, Hilda instinctively rejects the impropriety of the invitation.

What Eustace cannot see, and what Hilda, with her built-in sense of right and wrong, sees very clearly, is that Dick’s invitation is the patronage of a squireen to his lesser tenantry, and that to accept is to place themselves outside their social milieu.

Yet Hilda accepts Staveley’s half-hearted invitation to Anchorstone Hall, despite her instinctive distrust of a playboy like Dick. The lapse stems from her perfectionist nature; she runs her clinic with such intolerant efficiency that she has completely alienated the nurses, the administrative staff, and a normally compliant Board. The breaking point is her autocratic demand to purchase an adjacent property for a chicken run to make the clinic self-sufficient—a cost the Board simply cannot meet.

Seeing the danger, Stephen Hilliard, Eustace's lawyer friend from Oxford, warns him not to sink Miss Fothergill’s bequest into the abyss of Hilda's greed for control.

With her clinic mutinying against her tyrannical ways and the expansion plan blocked, Hilda's defenses fall. She walks directly into the aristocratic mirage that Eustace is so gently leading her toward. She accepts the invitation, and steps straight into her undoing.

At Anchorstone Hall, both brother and sister are so dazzled by the old-world atmosphere of elegant luxury that they remain almost blind to their hosts' condescension, almost patronising attitudes. While the abrasive Hilda misses the signs of aristocratic scorn, the more sensitive Eustace becomes uneasily aware of his miscalculation.

The social friction peaks when Dick flirts openly with Hilda in front of his long-time girlfriend, Monica, offering to take a guest up in his plane. Hilda eagerly volunteers, overlooking Monica’s claim to the privilege. Their absence stretches over five hours for what should have been a brief flight. It is during this interval that Lady Staveley delivers her telling remark to a waiting Eustace: “Your Sixth Heaven is an absence of Hilda.”

Upon their return, the humiliation deepens. Lord Staveley’s sarcastic toast “to the happy couple” makes Eustace squirm, yet an infatuated Hilda misses the irony entirely, grandly asking her prospective "father-in-law" to take her hat as if she were already the mistress of the household. Whether Dick made love or proposed to her remains ambiguous; what is certain is that Hilda's fierce crush on him allows her imagination to run free, convincing her she is now Dick Staveley's affianced bride.

Seizing on this domestic distraction, Eustace blindly accepts an invitation to Venice from Lord Staveley's elegant sister, Lady Nelly, completely unaware that she is courting his fortune, not his company. This twin descent into delusion provides the tragic runway that launches us directly into the final volume of the trilogy, Eustace and Hilda.

Eustace and Hilda' (1947), the third volume of the trilogy, is deeply satirical of the fashionable expatriate community living in exotic places like Italy or Greece. In the inexperienced and bedazzled eyes of Eustace, however, this is a prolonged sixth heaven—an absence of the domineering Hilda, plus an entry into what he believes is high society in the company of Lady Nelly, his patroness. What Eustace cannot or will not understand is that in sharing part of his legacy with Hilda, he has not only given her independence, but by framing Venice as a luxury holiday, he has afforded himself a desperately purchased asylum.

In this asylum, he is accepted only so long as he remains a marketable commodity. Once the glamour of his wealth fades and the inevitable question, “But what does he do?” is whispered, Eustace, who has never needed to work, is forced to reinvent himself as a writer. He does this heroically, even manically, filling notebook after notebook at the mocking insistence of Lady Nelly’s set.

All the while, Eustace ignores the warning signals from home that all is not well with Hilda and Dick Staveley, or that Hilda is gravely ill, until he receives a stinging letter from Steven Hilliard. This finally opens his eyes to the fact that his Venetian bubble has burst, forcing his return home. Even then, he might have dragged out his stay a little longer but for an unexpected encounter with Dick Staveley at a cheap café, who tells him the truth in a way that even Eustace cannot ignore. Hilda had been so clinging and possessive that Dick finally had to remind her he had never proposed to her, and that she had taken an engagement between them for granted. She refused to believe him even when told that his engagement to his cousin Monica was a long-standing one. Not until he had this printed in the newspapers did Hilda accept the fact, and then she collapsed.

Eustace returns home to a Hilda totally paralysed, dumb, wheelchair-bound, and dependent on the help of others. She has nobody now but Eustace. Yet even in her helpless state, she has him wheel her out for fresh air outings. Eustace does all he can, until a chance accident pushes the wheelchair to the brink of a precipice. The shock to Hilda's nervous system is so great that she recovers the use of her limbs and her speech. And Eustace? Well, he has outlived his usefulness.

If we grieve, let it be for Hilda rather than Eustace. Hilda remains a secondary character in her own tragedy because the trilogy is fundamentally anchored in Eustace's consciousness. He stands condemned by his own passiveness.

L.P. Hartley believed that "moral responsibility" was not just about following rules, but about the necessity of action versus passive "people-pleasing". While Eustace’s actions are often heroic in their self-sacrifice, they are also a form of moral passivity—a plea to be allowed to stay in his pleasant fantasy without being held accountable for the reality he has set in motion, as his dream of a Hilda-Dick Staveley union, to give an example.

Hartley finds his meaning in this unresolved tension of human relationships. His realism is interior and surgical; he does not need a sprawling plot because the true action is the microscopic, slow-motion destruction of a boy’s autonomy. It is realistic because it acknowledges that some wounds, like Hilda’s suffocating care, never truly heal.

[Gila Gila · Rating 4 out of 5]

Three novels presented in volume - and they really do read more as one novel in parts than three separate entities - about the lifelong and often trap-like devotion between a rather timid but very bright younger brother and his dictatorial older sister. The writing can be slow going (taking place in early 1900s England, the language cadence is musical, the descriptive passages often lengthy, and the general restraint one would expect is even thicker with Hartley). But much of it is beautiful, particularly at the very start and end of the book, with the best parts of the story taking place solely in Eustace's mind. His frequent imaginings, dialogues and visions that never take place, are like a little tunnel burrowing into someone's secret self.

A long, cadenced and evocative read, best for fans of gently told turn of the century English novels.

[Angie · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Shrimp And The Anemone - 5 stars

Hilda's Letter - 5 stars

The Sixth Heaven - 4 stars

Eustace And Hilda - 2 Stars

I really enjoyed the first two parts of this book but the last part.... ugh. I was so over Eustace's Venice storyline and it would just not end. It was super frustrating watching him hero-worship all these rich, self-absorbed assholes. And when he wasn't dangling on their every word he was having all these dumb daydreams of conversations between people or events happening. There was so much of it that it sometimes became confusing to determine what was real and what was just his imagination.

Also wish Hilda could've had more of a perspective. The Book is called Eustace And Hilda but she is pretty much relegated to a secondary character and we don't get much of her perspective, especially in the 2nd half of the book.

[David Standing · Rating 5 out of 5]

L.P. Hartley had something of a checkered literary career. He is best known for “The Go-Between”, by a large measure owing to the wonderful film and recently television, versions. “The Go-Between” is a remarkable novel, but it is the lesser known “Eustace and Hilda” that is, to my mind, his greatest achievement.

Sadly, other than “The Hireling” (1957), the quality of his output declined radically, and the novels he continued to write are surprisingly banal, especially when one recalls, “The Go-Between” and “Eustace and Hilda”.

It’s a long novel, clearly written with much love and care containing many stunning passages. I strongly urge readers get hold of a copy.

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautifully written trilogy about a brother & sister. I found the last third a bit slow-going, but it was worth it. What a gifted writer!

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

In mesmerising and elegant prose, L. P. Hartley chronicles the lives and times of two siblings - the sickly and desperate to please Eustace and his older sister, the domineering Hilda.

Using modern psychological terms, the two would be called co-dependant and the opening chapter of the first volume of this trilogy states that clearly. Eustace sees a sea anemone having caught a shrimp and in his attempt to free the shrimp, both are killed. One cannot live without the other; their fates are too intertwined.

The three novels that make up this volume really read as one complete novel: The Shrimp and The Anemone follows the siblings as children; The Sixth Heaven follows Eustace as he adjusts to life at Oxford while Hilda goes off into the world; Eustace and Hilda - the final novel - sees Eustace in Venice ill suited to the life of the aristocratic expatriate society there while Hilda struggle physically at home.

Rather than a plot in a concrete sense, Hartley follows the brother and sister through the years and is unable to separate the two, so tightly interwoven are their respective lives. Eustace, who puts the pathetic in sympathetic, mistakes Hilda’s bossiness and imperiousness for love while he himself struggles with overthinking any social interaction and is an insufferable people-pleaser. Neither sibling is a particularly pleasant person but through Hartley’s masterful writings, the full examination of Eustace’s inner world, the two are granted a measure of the reader’s sympathy and interest.

As in his most memorable work, The Go-Between, in which Leo’s youth is cruelly denied by the adults around him, the inner workings of the central character - Eustace - allow Hartley to shine as a writer. Eustace’s youth is taken by illness and a moralising family who refuse to allow him any real agency. This continues to plague Eustace as he matures until he is once again inexorably bound to Hilda in the novel’s final scenes.

Beautifully-written descriptions of the English countryside and of Venice in the summer cement this as an underrated and yet worthy English novel, one of Hartley’s best.

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thought this book was fantastic. Strong lively complete casts of characters seem to be a recurring thing in Hartley's work and this trilogy is no exception. The trilogy spans from childhood to adolescence and its great to see the changes of the characters through this and its not just a single shift after an age jump but a continual change throughout. With Eustace being the main perspective of the narrative, he is given tremendous character through his daydreams of nerves and uncertainty and the eventual change and growth of this. Though Eustace is the main point of focus/perspective Hilda is constantly mentioned/within the narrative. There is little action portrayed and the little action there is, is made grand with Eustace's struggles (his hear condition) and the social action is enough to always keep your attention

There is also an amazing ending linking back to the beginning which was the reason I believe this trilogy to be 5 stars
I believe that their relationship is shown through the first chapter, the shrimp and the
sea anemone; with Eustace being the shrimp and Hilda being the anemone. The co-dependent relationship is shown through the relationship between the sea creatures where the anemone will starve without the shrimp and this is reflected in the story with Hilda falling into her paralysis as she falls out the narrative when Eustace lives in Venice. This explained the ending for me when he gives his body to the anemone giving his all to Hilda and dying after giving the exam with Hilda acting kind of like his guardian angel. One thing I do not quite understand is lady Nelly's exemption from the final exam?

[Mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

L. P. Hartley's EUSTACE AND HILDA is a masterpiece, but at nearly 750 pages, it's not for everyone. Known primarily for his novel, THE GO-BETWEEN, Hartley's EUSTACE AND HILDA combines three books, all to tell the story of a brother and sister, and the events which conspire to change their lives. The inciting incident, and there is more than one of course in a book this long, is the inheritance left unexpectedly to Eustace by an older lady with whom he strikes up a friendship. That money changes the trajectory of their lives, and pushes them into a class to which they do not belong. The New York Review of Books writes, "L. P. Hartley’s much-loved novel, the magnum opus of one of twentieth-century England’s best writers, is a complex and spellbinding work: a comedy of upper-class manners; a study in the subtlest nuances of feeling; a poignant reckoning with the ironies of character and fate. Above all, it is about two people who cannot live together or apart, about the ties that bind—and break." I loved the novel, but I am a fan of lengthy tombs that explore the subtleties of very real characters who grow and change in ways both real and speculative. It's a long but very worthy read and I highly recommend taking the time to read Hartley's masterpiece.

[Dennis Callaghan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was impatient with this book somewhat because of the lack of plot, but it was worth reading. The characters are interesting, a brother and sister who grow up in their own private world. They are not wealthy and the story is largely about Eustace's attraction to the upper classes as he grows up. The brother-sister relationship is complicated. The older sister's domination is damaging to Eustace in many ways and his social aspirations for Hilda have unfortunate consequences. Eustace is afflicted with a sense of inadequacy in spite of his being an Oxford scholar and having many friends. A curious aspect of the book for me is that Eustace appears to be a gay man. That would have been difficult to make explicit in the time in which it was written(the 1940's) but I suspect the author intended this to be clear at least to gay readers of the day. Eustace himself is in love with the aristocratic man whom he would like his sister to marry. The trilogy is satisfying in formal terms in that it has a symmetry between the early chapters and the last few chapters which I really appreciated.

[Carrie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Why is this trilogy never featured in best book lists? It's far better than some of the titles that crop up time and again (Catcher In The Rye, for instance).
It's a character driven story, rather than a gripping plot, but what a masterpiece of character writing. Eustace Cherrington is a feeble, neurotic and weak person, yet the writing brought him so much to life that he's one of my favourite characters in literature. (He would probably infuriate me in real life).The contrast is with his domineering sister. He escapes her clutches and begins to grow, becoming almost assertive, although his shows of strength are undermined by fainting fits. Inevitably, they fall back into their roles by the end. There's a comic element throughout and some parts had me laughing out loud. The language is beautiful and the books contain some of the most perfectly crafted sentences you'll ever find.
The trilogy is one of the best things I have read in a long, long time and has firmly placed itself in my favourites list. I'm already looking forward to re-reading it.

[JAMES COYLE · Rating 3 out of 5]

The final part of the trilogy does not live up to the first two parts. The scenes in Italy with Lady Nelly are inconsequential and just pandering to snobbery. Plus the interminable conversations in Italian. I kept waiting for the aftermath of the Hilda-Dick Staveley breakup to occur. It's never fully explained in sexual terms, but I don't suppose one did back in 1947. However the Author's delicate handling of the situation is justified in psychological terms, I suppose. ( Stiff upper lip ). I was glad to have finished the book and found out what happened in the brother/sister relationship, but agree with other readers who felt bored. Still, its good to have read another novel by the Author of 'THE GO BETWEEN', albeit not as pithy as the former.

[Cuilin Sheridan · Rating 4 out of 5]

If ever there was a cautionary tale regarding living your life on someone else’s terms this is it. Darling Eustace (shall we say neurodivergent) didn’t have a chance. A wonderfully written story about the bond between motherless siblings Hilda and Eustace. Couldn’t (shouldn’t) live together couldn’t live apart.

Since many people compare this book to LP Hartleys, the Go-Between I’ll throw in my two cents and say my vote goes for the Go-Between. LP H wonderfully captures the voice and internal dialogue of childhood Both Leo and Eustace are rendered with sympathy, flawed but thoroughly likable.

[Muaz Jalil · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am referring to Eustace and Hilda, the trilogy's third part. I like the book and its reflection of a codependent, toxic relationship where one is dominant and the other subservient, both needing each other and yet destructive to each other. But I hated or abhorred the constant digression to Eustace's fantasy and daydream. I think Hartley overused it; I know it shows how Eustace is struggling and his imagination is a coping mechanism and it's ego trying to protect against its superego (which is probably Hilda), but it's like 50% of the book!

[Kiri Johnston · Rating 4 out of 5]

Whew. Such a rich and delicate book, packed with psychological subtleties and luscious prose, but never heavy. I liked book 1 (The Shrimp and the Anemone) better than the last two because it’s got the most heart and thematic weight, but following the siblings’ doomed life paths as they begin to cross again is the best part of reading all three books in one go. Felt awful for poor Eustace, even if he is a terrible ditherer, but can’t quite hate Hilda - she’s so fiery and tenacious that it’s hard not to respect her.

[Grace · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book because I enjoyed The Go-Between. Hartley really knows how to hone a sentence and observe nuanced feelings with insight. He demonstrates this in both books. This trilogy is much longer, of course, and I think the slow pace, and lack of much plot, throw the focus onto really poignant and subtle emotions. Important throughout are Eustace’s dreams, which move from the mundane to the surreal and, at the end, merge with the action in a really innovative allegorical way. I thoroughly enjoyed this book, I found it gripping, and would recommend it heartily.

[R · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not a book for lovers of fast-paced or action-packed thrillers. If that is your thing, avoid at all costs. This classic novel somehow passed me by in my youth, and, in my retirement, after a personal recommendation by my daughter, I decided to embark on a long read. I'm glad I did. The Eustace and Hilda trilogy is one of the best books I have ever read. Read it slowly, savour the characterisation and the leisurely storytelling, and challenge yourself to predict the ending (you won't).

[Richard Swan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Civilised novels; very much a kind of fictionalised imagining of Hartley’s own experiences from childhood (The Shrimp and the Anemone) to university (The Sixth Heaven) to adulthood (Eustace and Hilda). The last one veers towards melodrama, but the whole trilogy is very pleasing.