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I Capture the Castle | 
| Author: Dodie Smith
Publisher: Chivers Audio Books
Category: Book
Buy Used: $286.75
Avg. Customer Rating:  229 reviews
Format: Audiobook
Media: Audio Cassette
Edition: Library Ed
Number Of Items: 1
ISBN: 1855490285
EAN: 9781855490284
ASIN: 1855490285
Publication Date: January 1996
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: BOOK HAS LIBRARY STICKER ON COVER OTHERWISE GREAT CONDITION
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Amazon.com Review
Seventeen-year-old Cassandra Mortmain wants to become a writer. Trouble is, she's the daughter of a once-famous author with a severe case of writer's block. Her family--beautiful sister Rose, brooding father James, ethereal stepmother Topaz--is barely scraping by in a crumbling English castle they leased when times were good. Now there's very little furniture, hardly any food, and just a few pages of notebook paper left to write on. Bravely making the best of things, Cassandra gets hold of a journal and begins her literary apprenticeship by refusing to face the facts. She writes, "I have just remarked to Rose that our situation is really rather romantic, two girls in this strange and lonely house. She replied that she saw nothing romantic about being shut up in a crumbling ruin surrounded by a sea of mud." Rose longs for suitors and new tea dresses while Cassandra scorns romance: "I know all about the facts of life. And I don't think much of them." But romantic isolation comes to an end both for the family and for Cassandra's heart when the wealthy, adventurous Cotton family takes over the nearby estate. Cassandra is a witty, pensive, observant heroine, just the right voice for chronicling the perilous cusp of adulthood. Some people have compared I Capture the Castle to the novels of Jane Austen, and it's just as well-plotted and witty. But the Mortmains are more bohemian--as much like the Addams Family as like any of Austen's characters. Dodie Smith, author of 101 Dalmations, wrote this novel in 1948. And though the story is set in the 1930s, it still feels fresh, and well deserves its reputation as a modern classic. --Maria Dolan
Product Description
During six turbulent years in 1934, 17-year-old Cassandra Mortmain keeps a journal, filling three notebooks with sharply funny yet poignant entries about her home, a ruined Suffolk castle, and her eccentric and penniless family. By the time the last diary shuts, there have been great changes in the Mortmain household, not the least of which is that Cassandra is deeply, hopelessly, in love. Illustrations .
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| Customer Reviews: Read 224 more reviews...
 A wonderful story October 5, 2008
I just loved I Capture The Castle. What a charming book!
Set in the 1930s in a rural English town, the novel tells the story of Cassandra Mortmain, a seventeen year old girl living with her family in a run-down castle. Cassandra's family is highly eccentric. Her father is a tortured writer, her stepmother a free spirit and great beauty and her sister Rose is her imaginative best friend and confidante. The story revolves around the love triangle that ensues when two wealthy American brothers move into a nearby estate and begin courting the Mortmain sisters.
Smith's writing style is languid and lushly romantic. The novel is a pleasure to read. While Rose and Cassandra's romances are very much mired in old fashioned conventions, the emotions involved are quite accessible to modern readers. Cassandra comes across as a vivid and believable character and it's easy to care for her.
I have to say that I was disappointed in the ending. Not because it didn't work, but because I'd been hoping for a different outcome. I actually thought about it for days. That's the power of a good story!
 Nicely done August 22, 2008
This a very appealing book for teens. A young girl who find herself in a castle, with sister, brother, father and step mother. All of them have very different personalities. The oldest girl keeps a diary of everything, because she want to be a writer better than her father. All while looking for love, specially the love of a well to do man.
Anna del C.
Author of "The Elf and the Princess"
and "Trouble in the Elf City"
The Elf and The Princess: The Silent Warrior Trilogy - Book One (The Silent Warrior Trilogy)
One of my ALL TIME FAVORITE Novels!!! August 18, 2008
This is a literary gem that should, at the very least, be read by everyone who has a love for historical novels. It is a fantastic/appropriate read for both teens and adults, and I recommend it so much that I have had to buy several copies over the years - unsure of who has my last one when I find myself recommending it to yet another friend.
I'm ordering two more copies today.
The main character, Cassandra, is my favorite narrator of all time. She is witty, yet not overdone, and tells the story with an honest teen perspective. She is humiliated when a normal 17-year-old would feel so, and finds herself in completely realistic situations, rather than overly dramatic versions of reality. And yet there is SO much to laugh at, and feel agony over. The balance of wit and angst is perfect in my opinion.
The ending is as surprising as any in literature, and still so real. It is not at all a novel where the story is wrapped up with a neat red bow, but rather one which makes you smile and say, "Ah, Cassandra, you are going to go places, my dear friend." That is exactly how I feel about Cassandra - she is a dear friend who I wish could have told me story after story as her life progressed!
This was a book that could have had many exciting sequels, but apparently wasn't as appreciated in its day as it should have been.
Hooray for Dodie Smith - I wish she would have written 101 more novels :)
I loved it!! August 5, 2008
The setting of the book is wonderfull I was quickly absorbed in the story a MUST buy.
Enchanting! August 4, 2008
I have rarely read a book that I found so entrancing--one of those that I really didn't want to end! It has great whimsey without becoming silly and a point of view both innocent and wise. The narrator/diarist is one that I'll never forget. I am anxious to pass it on to friends to see if they fall head over heels with her as I did.
I want more by Ms. Smith, but it doesn't sound as if her other novels are in the same arena as this one. I can think of nothing to compare it to.
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