Servants: A Downstairs History of Britain from the Nineteenth Century to Modern Times

From the immense staff running a lavish Edwardian estate to the lonely maid-of-all-work cooking in a cramped middle-class house, domestics were an essential yet unobtrusive part of the British hierarchy for much of the past century, required to tread softly and blend into the background. Lucy Lethbridge’s Servants gives them a voice in this discerning portrait of the complex relationship between the server, the served, and the world they lived in, opening a window on British society from the Edwardian period to the present.

About the Author :
Lucy Lethbridge is the author of the highly praised Servants: A Downstairs History of Britain from the Nineteenth Century to Modern Times and Mind Your Manors: Tried-and-True British Household Cleaning Tips. She lives in London.

Review :
"A lively and complicating account of British social history seen through the eyes of the workers who made it possible." "Vivid…Household service provides Lethbridge with a window into almost every corner of social history." "Thorough and vastly entertaining…[Lethbridge’s] style is elegant, detached and slyly witty…Richly complex and enjoyable." "Spirited…Lethbridge’s book rings with the voices of those on both sides of the divide between upstairs and downstairs." "Absorbing history, much of it in the words of servants…[Lethbridge’s] subject is many-branched and full of pressing issues." "In this excellent addition to the history of domestic service in the 20th century, Lucy Lethbridge has swept the existing archive and added new sources of her own. The result is a richly textured account of what it felt like to spend the decades of high modernity on your knees with a dustpan and brush." "As a panorama, Servants is a great success. Enthusiasts of bonnets and waistcoasts will find Upstairs Downstairs or Downton Abbey all the more enjoyable after reading this nuanced and elegantly written account of the wider context. And in tracing the history of servants throughout the whole of the 20th century, Lethbridge offers a new vantage point from which to reassess British social history." "Lethbridge writes with sympathy about her subject…. Evenhanded to the end, [she] stresses the inherent dignity of domestic service." "Move over Downton Abbey, Lucy Lethbridge portrays life below stairs as it really was. Absorbing, highly entertaining, and impeccably researched, Servants is so much fun to read that it’s practically a guilty pleasure." "Lucy Lethbridge turns servants into stars, offering a colorful and compelling social history about the men, women, and children whose occupation rendered them invisible. Buoyed by substantial research, engaging anecdotes, and a lively narrative, the book places generations of overlooked domestics center stage, where, finally, they receive the attention they have always deserved."