What the Butler Winked at: Being the Life and Adventures of Eric Horne, Butler

Eric Horne served as a butler in some of the great English country manors from the 1860s until just after World War I, when he decided to write his memoir. Horne provides authentic detail as well as shrewd--and often witty--views of the aristocracy, the servants, and their activities. Horne is not sentimental though: he reveals the plight of the servant class, where once a butler lost his employment, he was likely to end up in a poorhouse, because employers did not usually provide pensions and servants were rarely able to save enough money to survive on their own. What the Butler Winked At is a fascinating and essential account of life in a country house during the height of the Victorian and Edwardian eras.