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Home / Series / Wideacre

Series

Wideacre

The Wideacre trilogy is a Georgian Gothic family saga centred on a fictional Sussex estate and the Lacey family’s struggle to possess it. Beginning with Beatrice Lacey’s determination to overcome male-only inheritance, the novels follow the consequences of her choices through the next generation and eventually to an heir raised outside the family.

Wideacre itself functions as home, source of wealth and destructive obsession. Across the trilogy, inheritance, sexuality, rural poverty and social rank expose the conflict between personal claims to the land and the lives of the tenants and labourers who sustain it.

Reading order

Books in this series (3 books)

Wideacre cover

#1 – Wideacre

Philippa Gregory

In the 1770s Beatrice Lacey is devoted to Wideacre, her family’s Sussex estate, but inheritance law reserves the land for her brother Harry. Refusing the restricted future planned for her, she begins a calculated campaign to control the estate through secrecy, seduction and marriage. Beatrice’s determination…

The Favoured Child cover

#2 – The Favoured Child

Philippa Gregory

Wideacre is burdened by debt and the consequences of Beatrice Lacey’s rule. Her daughter Julia and nephew Richard grow up together as possible heirs, but their different relationships with the estate and its tenants create rivalry. Julia develops an intuitive attachment to the land and tries…

Meridon cover

#3 – Meridon

Philippa Gregory

Meridon grows up performing with a travelling show, haunted by dreams of a place she cannot identify. After loss and betrayal, she discovers that her origins are connected to Wideacre and enters the genteel world from which she was separated as a child. Claiming an inheritance…