3 h 45 minAudiobook8 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at cost
Audiobook edition · 3 h 45 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What if every attempt to be helpful only makes a country house more chaotic?
In Happy-Thought Hall, F. C. Burnand brings hosts, guests and good intentions together under one English country-house roof. Schemes promise to help, please or improve things, but instead make matters worse. The small troubles of respectable life become the stuff of gentle farce, with everyone’s efforts adding to the confusion.
The company is eccentric, the manners quietly absurd. Strong habits, fixed opinions and peculiar ways of speaking rub against one another, giving Burnand room to find comedy in social life. The pleasure lies less in a tightly driven plot than in watching odd people share space and well-meant plans go sideways.
What you’ll discover
- Country-house comedy Enter a shared world where hosts and guests give one another plenty of trouble.
- Help that goes wrong Follow schemes whose good intentions make the resulting confusion all the more amusing.
- An eccentric company Meet odd guests whose habits and opinions become funnier when placed side by side.
- Manners worth watching Enjoy the quiet absurdity of respectable English life through Burnand’s light social comedy.
- A taste of gentle farce Find laughter in small troubles rather than the weight of serious, realistic drama.
Who will love it
Readers who enjoy Victorian humour, wordplay and gentle satire of country house manners will find plenty here, and so will anyone who likes a farce, a pun, a comic song or a well-observed bore.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A dream house turns into a rental
- Blackmeer Hall and its good intentions
- Lost in the house
- Choosing a party and a household
- Talkers, lecturers and wet days
- The Regniatis arrive
- Sundays, sermons and the farce
- Matchmaking and practical jokes
- What the house is really about
Who’s who
- The narratorThe president of the house party, who jots down Happy Thoughts all day and hopes to write a great philosophical work.
- Jenkyns SoamesA scientist who is writing on Scientific Economy and turns every subject into a lecture with formulas.
- MilburdA joker who suggests bay windows, writes the farce Penelope Anne and brings his aunt and uncle to the Hall.
- BoodelsA gloomy friend who lends servants and a deaf grandmother, says Pooh to new ideas and keeps a secret about marriage.
- Madame RegniatiA stern hostess with classical manners who runs the household and her husband, and enjoys matchmaking.
- Signor RegniatiA kind, lazy Italian sculptor who prefers pigs and shooting to art and swears by My Jo.
- CazellA friend who always knows what you ought to do, and who denies it afterward if it goes wrong.
- Jimmy LayderA guest who arrives with a box of practical jokes and cannot stop using them.
Formats and delivery
- eBook
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- Large-print eBook
- The same book in bigger, clearer type, from the first page.
- Audiobook
- 3 h 45 min, complete, read by Lucas Linden.
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas in about 8 minutes, to read or to hear.
- Paperback
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Hardcover
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print paperback
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print hardcover
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
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Happy-Thought Hall
by F. C. Burnand · 1872
A host with a head full of Happy Thoughts rents a crumbling Hertfordshire mansion and lets his friends move in.
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In short
Happy-Thought Hall is a comic novel by F. C. Burnand, who made his name as a Victorian humorist and playwright. It follows a talkative narrator who tries to build, then rent, a country house and fill it with friends for one winter.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A dream house turns into a rental
The story opens with a fine idea. The narrator wants a country house for the winter, with one wing for bachelors, one for unmarried ladies and their chaperons, and a middle section for married couples. His friend Cazell, who knows everything about everything, tells him to borrow the money from a building society.
The plan grows with every visitor. Milburd asks for a Turkish bath, a racquet court and a tennis court. Boodels says the house will cost more than expected. Each new room seems to cost a bedroom somewhere else.
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What is Happy-Thought Hall about?
It follows a talkative narrator who rents a run-down country house in Hertfordshire for one winter and fills it with friends. His Happy Thoughts, guests and rows give the book its loose, comic shape.
Who wrote Happy-Thought Hall and when?
F. C. Burnand wrote it. He was a Victorian humorist and playwright who died in 1917. The book belongs to his Happy Thoughts series.
What does Happy Thought mean in the book?
A Happy Thought is the narrator's name for each bright idea that strikes him. He writes them in the margins of his story, and nearly every one leads to a comic muddle.
The author
F. C. Burnand
1836–1917 · British humorist and playwright
Francis Cowley Burnand (1836–1917) was a British writer and dramatist. He was born in London and died in Ramsgate, Kent. He wrote comic plays and humorous books, including Happy-Thought Hall. He contributed to the magazine Punch and served as its editor from 1880 to 1906.
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