Given that most teenagers believe their parents to be mad – and vice versa – the novel also serves as a helpful guide to recognising the fine line between eccentricity and outright insanity. ‘There are many good reasons to read Dodie Smith’s I Capture the Castle: it provides excellent advice about dressing on a budget (dye all your clothes sea-green) how to cope when the man you love falls for your elder sister (keep a diary) and your stepmother dances naked in the rain (ditto). Born Dorothy Gladys Smith in Lancashire, England, Dodie Smith was raised in Manchester (her memoir is titled A Childhood in Manchester). Dodie Smiths charming, funny and poignant love story is a classic of 20th-century English literature, and this sparkling adaptation, starring Toby Jones and Holliday Grainger, will enchant and delight. Adapted to a feature film in 2003, I Capture the Castle tells the story of seventeen-year-old Cassandra and her family, who live in not-so-genteel poverty in a. Smith wrote the book after emigrating with. Part of the Macmillan Collector’s Library a series of stunning, clothbound, pocket sized classics with gold foiled edges and ribbon markers. However, their lives are thrown into confusion when the American heirs to the castle arrive and Cassandra finds herself falling in love for the first time. I Capture the Castle was published in the USA in October, preceding the UK edition by a year. A wonderfully quirky coming-of-age story, I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith, author of The Hundred and One Dalmatians is an affectionately drawn portrait of one of the funniest families in literature. In her journal, she records her life with her beautiful, bored sister, Rose, her glamorous stepmother Topaz, her little brother Thomas and her eccentric novelist father who suffers from writer’s block. ‘I write this sitting in the kitchen sink’ is the first line of I Capture the Castle, a timeless, witty and enchanting novel by Dodie Smith about growing up.Ĭassandra Mortmain lives with her bohemian, impoverished family in a crumbling castle in the middle of nowhere. A beloved novel is reissued with a Foreword by New York Times-bestselling author Han.