The house was built in the Old Queen's time -- built for an Elizabethan pirate who was knighted for the plunder he brought home. It survived many eras, many reigns -- it saw the passing of Cromwell and the Civil War. It became rich with an Indian Nabob and poor with a twentieth century innkeeper. It saw wars, and lovers, and death. Children were born there, both heirs and bastards. It had ghosts and legends and a history that grew stranger with every generation. The house was Merravay -- and its story stretched over four ...
Read More
The house was built in the Old Queen's time -- built for an Elizabethan pirate who was knighted for the plunder he brought home. It survived many eras, many reigns -- it saw the passing of Cromwell and the Civil War. It became rich with an Indian Nabob and poor with a twentieth century innkeeper. It saw wars, and lovers, and death. Children were born there, both heirs and bastards. It had ghosts and legends and a history that grew stranger with every generation. The house was Merravay -- and its story stretched over four hundred years...
Read Less
Norah Lofts (1904-1983) was a well-regarded British writer of historical fiction, and "Bless This House" is an excellent example of the genre. The book traces the history of an Elizabethan house, Merrivay, from its design and construction (and a subsequent visit from Queen Elizabeth I) through the post-war period. Although the house itself is the heroine of the novel, her human inhabitants over the centuries are well-drawn and believable and include, among many, a disagreeable nouveau-riche nabob freshly home from India, a reluctant psychic condemned as a witch in the 17th century, and an epileptic apprentice who leaves his ghost to haunt the house he helped to build. Of particular interest are the cultural changes in England over the 400-year period, reflected in the personalities and fortunes of Merrivay's residents.
