The Town House

by Norah Lofts Book 1 in the The House Trilogy series.

First published 1959

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4.2(1,606)

Suffolk, late fourteenth century. Martin Reed is born a serf in 1381 into a society that treats hierarchy as fixed and obedience as natural. His defence of the woman he loves turns private defiance into flight, forcing him to abandon the identity allotted to him and learn how to survive beyond the manor. Through work, trade and determination he builds a new position for himself in a world still governed by lordship, guild privilege and inherited rank.
As Martin’s fortunes change, the house that will dominate the trilogy takes shape from the consequences of his rebellion. Lofts follows the family into the fifteenth century, making property, marriage, craft, religion and local memory as important as dynastic politics. The result is a long social history of late-medieval Suffolk centred on how one runaway serf creates an inheritance that later generations will repeatedly reinterpret.