I Capture the Castle

I Capture the Castle is Dodie Smith's first novel, written during the Second World War when she and her husband Alec Beesley, a conscientious objector, moved from their native England to California. Smith was already an established playwright and later became famous for writing the children's classic The Hundred and One Dalmatians.
The novel concerns an eccentric family struggling to live in genteel poverty in a decaying castle during the 1930s. The first-person narrator is Cassandra Mortmain, who tells the story through her journal. It is a coming-of-age story in which Cassandra becomes a young woman and experiences her first love.
In 2003 the novel was listed at number 82 in the BBC's survey The Big Read.
The novel takes place between April and October in a single year in the 1930s. Ten years before, widower James Mortmain took out a forty-year repairing lease on a dilapidated but beautiful castle, hoping it would inspire him and cure his writer's block. He has been unable to write anything since the success of his first book, Jacob Wrestling (a reference to Jacob wrestling with the angel), an innovative and "difficult" modernist novel that made his name internationally. So far, his family has survived on royalties from that book, but they are dwindling to nothing. Now they are selling off the furniture to buy food.
His family consists of:
As the novel opens, Rose and Cassandra learn that their new landlords are two rich and handsome young American brothers, who have arrived at nearby Scoatney Hall.
Rose determines to marry Simon, declaring she would marry the Devil himself to escape poverty.
The brothers are excited to meet James Mortmain, whose book they admire, and are amused by the eccentric, bohemian family. However, when they pay a call the following day, Rose flirts blatantly with Simon and makes herself look ridiculous. Both brothers are repelled by this display and, as they walk away, Cassandra overhears them resolving to drop all acquaintance. After an amusing episode involving a fur coat, however, all is forgiven and the two families become good friends. Cassandra and Topaz scheme to make Rose's wish come true by getting Simon to fall in love with her and propose. The plan succeeds.
While Rose and Topaz are in London with Mrs Cotton to purchase Rose's wedding trousseau, Cassandra and Simon spend the evening together, and they kiss. Cassandra becomes obsessed with Simon. She suffers terrible guilt since he is Rose's fiancé, but she also begins to have misgivings about the marriage, since Rose's letters are full of the luxuries she's enjoying, with no mention of Simon at all.
Stephen, noticing Cassandra's unhappiness, offers to marry her. She declines saying she doesn't love him, and encourages him in his emerging career as a model and film actor. She and Thomas concoct a scheme to help their father overcome his writer's block by the drastic expedient of imprisoning him in a medieval tower.
Meanwhile, unnoticed by everyone but Stephen, Rose and Neil have been falling in love. When they eventually elope, Simon is left heartbroken, but Cassandra becomes hopeful. Before Simon returns to the States, he comes to see her. Cassandra deflects the conversation at a moment when she thinks he is about to propose, in the belief that he is still in love with Rose. The book closes on an ambiguous note, with Cassandra reminding herself that Simon has promised to return and closing her journal for good by reasserting her love for him.
On 5 November 2019, the BBC News listed I Capture the Castle on its list of the 100 most inspiring novels.
I Capture the Castle was cited by Armistead Maupin as an influence on his novel Maybe the Moon, which he also structured as a diary.