Customer Reviews

Border affair (The Gringos)

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This book should be revived. It's a true treasure of information of the lives of the poor in england in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

Margaret Powell who became famous late in life in the 1970s wrote this about her mother's life. Her mother who was born in poor 1880 and became a servant as a young teenager. The life is brutal. But just being poor then was brutal. The book descibes that life in a very interesting, matter of fact and detailed way.

The thing I really liked about this book is first of all it's very well written and enjoyable to read. Despite the harsh life described, it's not a downer to read as it's written in such a matter of fact way and it's so interesting. The other thing that is superior about this book is the details, enough details where one has a real sense of what life was really like but never too much that it gets boring.

This is really a sociological resource.

I've also read "Below the Stairs" and Climbing the Stairs" by Margaret Powell, as she too worked as a domestic, both are good, but this is better.