It’s no secret that I adore Downton Abbey. Its combination of unabashed melodrama, intelligent characters and lush settings has found a loyal following. Its phenomenal success has spawned a flurry of books and television series trying to capture the rarified air of high-class society filled with real world people.
The writing, editing, and publication process for a book is very long (the manuscript I’m working on now won’t be released until Summer 2015!) so I don’t think the flurry of books touted as “the next Downton” were cranked out as copy cats. My hunch is that books like Summerset Abbey were already written, possibly languishing in an editor’s slushpile, when they were hauled out, rebranded with suitable titles and covers to echo the Downton tone.
ABC got on the bandwagon with Gilded Lilly’s, an 1895 drama set in the glittering world of New York’s finest hotel. It had Blythe Danner cast as the matriarch, but sadly, filming was dropped after the pilot episode….possibly when the creator of Downton Abbey (Julian Fellowes) inked a deal with NBC to create a series called The Gilded Age.
Everything about The Gilded Age has been very hush-hush, and no word if it will actually get picked up by NBC, but I’m keeping my fingers crossed!
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Oh, can I recommend a book? Really a trilogy. The Greville Family Saga by Phillip Rock. I love Downton and I ADORE those books. The first is the series is called “The Passing Bells.”
I should add, it was originally published in the late 1970s, so it was definitely Downton before Downton was vogue! 🙂
Thanks Ruth….. I love big, sprawling family epics. I’ll add it to my list! It seems that these were all the rage in the 1970s and 80s. The Poldark Saga will forever be a fovorite….