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The Town House: The Building of the House
The Town House The Building of the House Author:Norah Lofts By the author of Bless This House. — "The man directly responsible for this book died more than five hundred years ago. He lies under a stone in the floor of St. Mary's Church, and I have often...told myself that one day I would write a story about a merchant in medieval times." — The Townhouse is that story, an historical novel in the grand trad... more »ition, drawn from the colorful pageant of fifteenth-century England--its powerful guilds, its monasteries, its troubadours and pilgrims, its superstitions, its complex feudal system giving way, at last, to a dynamic merchant society. The Town House follows Martin Reed, his children, and grandchildren--three generations of a family who rose from serfdom to prosperity in England five centuries ago. It is the absorbing chronicle of a young boy whose proud spirit pulled him out of bondage into the uneasy freedom of Baildon Town, his struggle to find work in an economy dominated by the guilds, and the sudden stroke of fortune which made him a man of property. Others, too, have a share in Martin's dramatic story: beautiful Kate--who bore him two sons in the dark archways of Baildon Abbey; the wild gypsy girl Magda--for whom he built the first rude shelter; Martin's tormented, gifted son Richard, his bride--the passionate, demon-driven Ann Blanchfleur; and the two grandchildren--living out their separate destinies in the shadow of Martin Reed's great house. Serfs, masters, lords, and ladies--all part of the mystery and romance of fifteenth-century England--come alive in this brilliant historical novel.« less