I Capture the Castle
Dodie Smith's I Capture the Castle is one of the most beloved British coming of age novels of the twentieth century, narrated by seventeen year old Cassandra Mortmain in a series of journals she keeps in a sixpenny notebook. Cassandra lives in a tumbledown Suffolk castle with her family: her once celebrated novelist father who has not written a word in years, her flamboyant artist's model stepmother Topaz, her practical older sister Rose, and her younger brother Thomas. Their genteel poverty has reached the point where they pawn the furniture for groceries and bathe in the kitchen sink, until two American brothers, the Cottons, inherit the surrounding estate and bring romance, money, and complication into the family's lives. Smith, who later wrote The Hundred and One Dalmatians, captures the texture of being a clever young woman watching her own consciousness arrive, and the novel's diary form has influenced everyone from Bridget Jones's Diary to The Princess Diaries.
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The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
Seventeen-year-old Cassandra Mortmain begins keeping a journal in the kitchen sink of the family's leaky castle. Her father has not written a book in years. Then the new American landlords arrive, with their two sons.
Yes. I Capture the Castle (1948) was written by Dodie Smith. She is also the author of The Hundred and One Dalmatians, which became the Disney film. The two books represent very different sides of her work.
Yes. A 2003 film adaptation directed by Tim Fywell and starring Romola Garai, Henry Thomas, and Bill Nighy was released. The film is generally faithful to the novel.
I Capture the Castle was written by Dodie Smith, published in 1948 by St. Martin's Press.
I Capture the Castle is 363 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, I Capture the Castle takes most readers 5 to 8 hours to finish.
I Capture the Castle is a standalone novel by Dodie Smith, not part of a series.
I Capture the Castle is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.
