I enjoyed finally reading this novel. Lauren Groff is a master of prose. A great example of how to create complex, compelling, and ultimately unlikeable characters.

I found this inside my 19th century copy of The Chafing Dish Supper Cookbook. It looks as though someone carefully planned the seating arrangement of a special dinner! So very Downton Abbey. I love finding secrets hidden in old books!

This 1890s cook book features recipes for the revolutionary new cooking tool, the chafing dish. Most of the recipes are basic, but I like the simplicity of them. It's cool to see what dishes were en vogue for this time period.

1920s Little Leather Library edition of Rudyard Kipling's Barrack-Room Ballads.

Title page and frontispiece illustration by CD Williams in the 1901 edition of Burnett's The Making of a Marchioness.

Before there was Lady Edith Crawley, there was the 1901 tale by Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Making of a Marchioness.