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Lady Almina and the Story of the Real Downton Abbey

Review by Leila McKinnon
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Lady Almina and the Story of the Real Downton Abbey

Lady Almina and the Story of the Real Downton Abbey by Lady Fiona Carnarvon, Hodder & Stoughton, $32.99

The perfect gift for lovers of the television series Downton Abbey, a show filmed at magnificent Highclere Castle, home of Lady Almina, Countess of Carnarvon, from 1895 until 1923.

The much loved but illegitimate daughter of a Jewish billionaire financier, Almina was vastly wealthy but her questionable birth made her unacceptable in certain circles.

Daddy fixed that with a marriage to the 5th Earl of Carnarvon, a financially strapped aristocratic adventurer.

Almina's transformation from debutante to society lady and eventually war nurse is fascinating, as is her husband's triumphant discovery of Tutankhamen's tomb.

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