Historical Fiction Benson, Robert Hugh: The King's Achievement. V1. 5 May 2009

[crutledge]

Robert Hugh Benson (1871-1914) is another member of that group of important Catholic writers from the first half of the twentieth century. In his case, though, his premature death in his early forties meant that he has never become as well-known as some of his more famous contemporaries such as Mgsr. Ronald Knox, Hilaire Belloc, and G. K. Chesterton.
He is best known for his novels, particularly his "prophetic" novels such as Lord of the World, but in his time he was also a sought-after preacher.

Excerpt
Overfield Court lay basking in warm June sunshine. The western side of the great house with its new timber and plaster faced the evening sun across the square lawns and high terrace; and the woods a couple of hundred yards away cast long shadows over the gardens that lay beyond the moat. The lawns, in their broad plateaux on the eastern side descended by steps, in cool shadow to the lake that formed a quarter-circle below the south-eastern angle of the house; and the mirrored trees and reeds on the other side were broken, circle after circle, by the great trout that were rising for their evening meal. The tall front of the house on the north, formed by the hall in the centre with the kitchen at its eastern end and the master’s chamber on the western, was faced by a square-towered gatehouse through which the straight drive leading into the main road approached the house under a lime-avenue; and on the south side the ground fell away again rapidly below the chapel and the morning-room, in copse and garden and wild meadow bright with buttercups and ox-eye daisies, down to the lake again and the moat that ran out of it round the entire domain.

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