 First British edition, William Heinemann, 1949 | |
| Author | Dodie Smith |
|---|---|
| Illustrator | Ruth Steed, from sketches by the author |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Novel |
| Set in | Suffolk and London, 1930s |
| Publisher | William Heinemann (UK); McClelland and Stewart (CA); Little, Brown (US) |
Publication date | 1948 |
| Publication place | United Kingdom, United States, Canada |
| Media type | Print: hardback |
| OCLC | 24724940 |
| 823.914 | |
I Capture the Castle was Dodie Smith's first novel, written during the Second World War when she and her husband Alec Beesley, a conscientious objector, moved from their native England to California. Smith was already an established playwright and later became famous for writing the children's classic The Hundred and One Dalmatians.
The novel concerns an eccentric family struggling to live in genteel poverty in a decaying castle during the 1930s. The first-person narrator is Cassandra Mortmain, who tells the story through her journal. It is a coming-of-age story in which Cassandra becomes a young woman and experiences her first love.
In 2003 the novel was listed at number 82 in the BBC's survey The Big Read.[1]
- ^ "The Big Read". BBC. April 2003, retrieved 26 October 2012