Charlotte Bingham
Auteur van The Chestnut Tree
Over de Auteur
Fotografie: charlottebingham.com
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Werken van Charlotte Bingham
Ombre et lumiere 1 exemplaar
Distance Music 1 exemplaar
Upstairs Downstairs: Second Season - Volume III [TV series, 1972] — Writer — 1 exemplaar
Upstairs Downstairs: First Season - Volume II [TV series, 1971-72] — Writer — 1 exemplaar
Upstairs Downstairs: First Season - Volume I [TV series, 1971] — Writer — 1 exemplaar
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Tagged
Algemene kennis
- Officiële naam
- Bingham Brady, Charlotte Mary Thérèse
- Geboortedatum
- 1942-06-29
- Geslacht
- female
- Nationaliteit
- UK
- Geboorteplaats
- Haywards Heath, Sussex, England, UK
- Woonplaatsen
- Haywards Heath, Sussex, England, UK
- Beroepen
- novelist
screenwriter - Relaties
- Bingham, Madeleine (mother)
Bingham, John (father)
Brady, Terence (husband) - Prijzen en onderscheidingen
- Romantic Novel of the Year Award (1994)
- Korte biografie
- The Honourable Charlotte Mary Thérèse Bingham was born on 29 June 1942 in Haywards Heath, Sussex, England, UK. Her father, John Bingham, the 7th Baron Clanmorris, wrote detective stories and was a secret member of MI5. Her mother, Madeleine Bingham, née Madeleine Mary Ebel, was a playwright. Charlotte first attended a school in London, but from the age of seven to 16, she went to the Priory of Our Lady's Good Counsel school in Haywards Heath. After she left school, she went to stay in Paris with some French aristocrats with the intention of learning French. She had written since she was 10 years old and her first piece of work was a thriller called Death's Ticket. She wrote her humorous autobiography, called Coronet Among the Weeds, when she was 19, and not long before her twentieth birthday a literary agent discovered her celebrating at the Ritz. He was a friend of her parents and he took off the finished manuscript of her autobiography. In 1963, this was published by Heinemanns and was a best seller.
In 1966, Charlotte Bingham's first novel, called Lucinda, was published. This was later adapted into a TV screenplay. In 1972, Coronet Among the Grass, her second autobiography, was published. This talked about the first ten years of her marriage to fellow writer Terence Brady. They couple, who have two children, later adapted Coronet Among the Grass and Coronet Among the Weeds, into the TV sitcom No, Honestly. She and her husband, Terence Brady, wrote three early episodes of Upstairs, Downstairs together, Board Wages, I Dies from Love and Out of the Everywhere. They later wrote an accompanying book called Rose's Story. They also wrote the episodes of Take Three Girls featuring Victoria (Liza Goddard). In the 1970s Brady and Bingham wrote episodes for the TV series Play for Today, Three Comedies of Marriage, Yes, Honestly and Robin's Nest. During the 1980s and 1990s they continued to write for the occasional TV series, and in 1993 adapted Jilly Cooper's novel Riders for the small screen. Since the 1980s she has become a romance novelist. In 1996 she won the Romantic Novel of the Year Award from the Romantic Novelists' Association.
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Besprekingen
Lijsten
THE WAR ROOM (1)
Prijzen
Misschien vindt je deze ook leuk
Gerelateerde auteurs
Statistieken
- Werken
- 60
- Ook door
- 2
- Leden
- 1,587
- Populariteit
- #16,256
- Waardering
- 3.4
- Besprekingen
- 31
- ISBNs
- 379
- Talen
- 9
The story is sweeping, told at a large scale. While the blurb makes it sound as if it is primarily a novel about World War One, the war only starts after about half of the story. Before that, we accompany young Kitty Knowle while she makes her way up into better society. Although she is a member of the upper classes herself, her chances of marrying someone suitable are small since her father is a notorious gambler. When her best friend from school, Lady Partita, invites Kitty to spend Christmas with her at her family's castle in the countryside, it seems like the opportunity of a lifetime.
Through Kitty's eyes, the reader experiences the luxurious lives of the aristocracy, including love, friendship and heartbreak, adventures, hopes and jealousies, until all of that comes to an expected, yet sudden stop when the war begins.
The second half deals mainly with the experiences of the women during the war, working as nurses in London or at the castle, which has been transformed into a hospital for convalescents. But there are also occasional chapters featuring the men, fighting in Belgium and France. The story features historical events such as the sinking of the Lusitania and the Battle of Loos, as well as many details of life in England. However, while there are many emotions, it is all told from a distance, and somehow it seems to be neither one thing nor the other. There are so, so many characters (not only Kitty, Partita and their respective love interests, but also a whole set of friends as well as some of their parents!), and the story spans several years, so despite the length of 602 pages, some chapters feel rushed. I think that it should have been longer to do more justice to the characters and not to cut out so much that was important, or the author should not have included quite so many characters. The distant point of view added to the feeling of reading about these people without being really close to them.
Nevertheless, I actually did enjoy this novel, and I felt with the characters, rooted for them, and was touched many times. I loved the descriptions of life at the castle before the war, which made the contrast to later events even stronger. Although I am not convinced of the distant point of view of the narration, I loved the writing style itself. I am not sure if I will read anything else by the author, but I do not regret reading this.… (meer)