This is a beautiful and haunting book tracing the lives of the heir to a Dukedom and his sister during the Edwardian age.

Sackville-West deals gently yet firmly with the social aspects of the age, the double standards, the society, and the arrising reforms.

Sebastian becomes very real, very human and his struggles are believable. Though maybe not her finest works, The Edwardians is an excellent book and well worth reading. ( )

2608 The Edwardians, by V. Sackville-West (read 24 May 1994) This book has a different warning in its front: "No character in this book is wholly fictitious." It is one of the author's most famous novels--it and All Passion Spent (1981)--and it has some incredibly sure-seeming touches and I suppose some hint of authenticity since the author was born in"the ancestral mansion presented to Thomas Sackville by Queen Elizabeth". per the Encyclopedia Americana. I am tempted to read some of her other books if they are findable, but I really didn't enjoy this book greatly, though it held one's interest, despite much to deplore in the main character's morals. ( )