Big Fancy House/Literature

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Examples of Big Fancy Houses in Literature include:

  • The Roman Mysteries has the Villa Limona, an opulent Roman sea-side house.
  • Pemberley in Pride and Prejudice. Curious, however, in that while by modern standards it's quite flashy, by the standards of the time it's quite a restrained and tasteful property, which is one of the things that indicates to Elizabeth Bennet that Mr. Darcy's Hidden Depths reveal him to be a more modest, humble and decent man than first impressions indicate.
    • Rosings Park, the home of his aunt Lady Catherine de Burgh, also appears; in keeping with his aunt's overall foolishness, snobbery and lack of decorum, it's a lot more gaudy and show-offy.
  • In the Foundation novels, we see the Emperor of the Galaxy lives on a 100 acre palace on the capital world of Trantor. Noteworthy since the rest of the planet is completely covered in a series of metal domes.
  • Manderley, in Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca, is the Cornish country estate of the wealthy Englishman Maximilian de Winter. It features heirlooms, a full staff, and is open to the public on certain days.
  • The Grosvenor Square mansion of the outrageously wealthy financier Augustus Melmotte in The Way We Live Now.
  • A number of extravagant "old money" homes appear in the Jeeves and Wooster stories by PG Wodehouse. Their owners are frequently some relation to Wooster, who is a model Upper Class Twit.
  • Sir Thomas and Lady Bertram's titular mansion in Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen.
  • Hercule Poirot frequently provides his services as a detective to upper-class residents of big, fancy houses.
  • Thornfield Hall, the Gothic estate of the wealthy Edward Rochester in Jane Eyre.
  • The wealthy Mr. Toad, of The Wind in the Willows, lives in his family seat called Toad Hall.
  • The villain in Hugh Laurie's book The Gun Seller lives in a huge mansion with attached grounds within easy commuting distance of London - the protagonist mentally notes the vast wealth this implies.
  • Jay Gatsby's mansion in The Great Gatsby, which is supposed to impress Daisy.
  • Hell Hall, the ancestral home of the de Vil family in The Hundred and One Dalmatians.
  • Misselthwaite Manor in The Secret Garden.
  • The Mouse World equivalent: in The Rescuers books, Miss Bianca is a pampered pet whose cage is a porcelain pagoda.
  • Darlington Hall, in Kazuo Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day.
  • The increasingly decrepit Hundreds Hall in Sarah Waters' The Little Stranger.
  • When an Ugly becomes a Pretty in Uglies, they get moved from a dorm to a Big Fancy House.
  • Homeward in J.P Martin's Uncle series. It's so big that the owner hasn't met a tenth of the people who also live there. It has a railway station that he didn't know about until the second book, and the most pimped out library possible, among countless other things.
  • Fowl Manor in the outskirts of Dublin, Ireland from Artemis Fowl. It's 200 freaking acres.
  • Baskerville Hall is probably the most well-known example in the Sherlock Holmes canon, but there are several instances of him visiting the sprawling country homes of the rich and powerful (and, occasionally, criminal).
  • In Robert E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian story "Rogues in the House", Nabonidus lives in one—which makes his lack of servants all the stranger.
  • In Buddenbrooks, Thomas builds one, but later feels exhausted and regrets building such an expensive home. Even the house the family moves in later (after their downfall has become obvious) would probably qualify.
  • Subverted in Malevil. The titular Malevil is a large English castle from the Hundred Years' War, sitting on a cliff with accompanying grounds. Emmanuel is not a wealthy man, upper-middle class at best, and nor was his uncle who left the inheritance he buys Malevil with. The property was sold "cheap" being considered a bad investment; the castle officially condemned and the grounds too unkempt to be worth the expense and hassle of restoration or clearing.
  • In The Good Earth, the rich family on the outskirts of the protagonist's home town and the rich family in the city both have this. The one in the city is so big that an entire tent city is spring up leaning on the wall around the estate.
  • In Animorphs, the group breaks into the mansion of Joe Bob Fenestre, a near- Captain Ersatz of Bill Gates, who has a ton of security measures in it. It gets burned down in the end.
  • Honor Harrington has acquired several through the course of the series. Harrington House on Grayson (which doubles as headquarters for the local government), her house on Manticore, her duchy on Gryphon, and her family's not-inconsiderable home on Sphinx.
  • Manderley in Rebecca.
  • Brandham Hall in The Go-Between.

Back to Big Fancy House