Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} Green Darkness by Anya Seton Green Darkness Summary & Study Guide. Green Darkness Summary & Study Guide includes comprehensive information and analysis to help you understand the book. This study guide contains the following sections: This detailed literature summary also contains Topics for Discussion and a Free Quiz on Green Darkness by Anya Seton. Green Darkness, by Anya Seton explores the lives and relationship of Celia Marsdon and Richard Marsdon as well as their 1550's counterparts, Celia de Bohun and Stephen Marsdon. The novel is centered around the concept of reincarnation and the ability to mend past tragedies by reliving them. Seton weaves her tale in 1968 England as well as Tudor England. She uses historical characters to shape the time lines and stories of her protagonists. The book begins at a house party in 1968, that Celia Marsdon is throwing for her new husband. Celia cannot figure out why Richard has suddenly become cold to her. It all started when the couple visits the ruins around Marsdon Place, their home. During the house party, guests, such as Dr. Akananda (an Indian Doctor) and Lily (Celia's mother) become worried about Celia because she is having episodes of some sort. Celia begins to act differently. She tries to gain Richard's attention, but when he will not return it, she pursues Sir Harry Jones, who is also attending the house party. Richard is outraged by Celia's actions. When they are alone at night in their bedroom. Richard confronts Celia, and she yells at him. Richard grabs Celia and carries her to the school room and rapes her. Mrs. Simpson, one of the guests at the party, walks in on the scene. Richard realizes what he has done when he looks down at Celia. She appears to be dead. He runs from the room. Lily and Dr. Akananda take Celia to the hospital. None of the other doctors believes she will make it through the illness, and no one can really figure out what is wrong with her. Dr. Akananda feels that Celia must go back in time and relive whatever tragedy occurred in her former life. Dr. Akananda decides to lead Celia through the journey. It is now 1552. The lovely Celia de Bohun is fourteen years old. She has come to live with her aunt, Lady Ursula, who lives at Cowdray Castle. Ursula is not the owner of Cowdray, even though her family used to own it. Now, Sir Anthony Browne owns the Castle and its lands. He lets Ursula stay there out kindness. It is at Cowdray that Celia meets Stephen Marsdon, a young monk, who lives at St. Ann's Hill and leads all the masses at Cowdray Castle. Stephen begins giving Celia reading and writing lessons, as well as lessons on the Bible. England is in a state of political disarray because King Edward is sickly. He visits Cowdray Caslte and because of this, many of Sir Anthony's friend come to stay. This is when Celia and Lady Ursula meet Magdalene Dacre and Dr. Julian Ridolfi. Celia and Ursula are invited by Magdalene to go visit her family in Cumberland. Ursula decides this is a good idea because she can separate Celia and Stephen from one another. Although she has no proof, Ursula senses that their is something between the two. Lady Ursula and Celia go to visit Maggie up North. Celia is saddened because she had gone to Stephen and declared her love for him and he rejected her. When Celia arrives at Naworth Castle, Maggie's home, she is pursued by Maggie's brother, Leonard. At first Celia knows that his attentions may lead to marriage and security, but Leonard is rough with her. Maggie catches Leonard trying to rape Celia and stops him before he can complete the act. Leonard then asks Celia to marry him, and even though Celia refuses, her aunt and Leonard's parents decide the two will marry. Close to Celia's wedding date, however, one of Leonard's family members die and the wedding never takes place. When Lady Ursula and Celia return home, many things have began to change. Mary is queen, so Sir Anthony has acquired much wealth. His wife has also passed away. Celia is reunited with Stephen, but he is cold towards her. Sir Anthony begins entertaining people to celebrate his good fortune. At one of his fiestas, Celia meets Sir John Hutchinson as well as Sir Thomas Wyatt. Both men are taken with Celia. Not all people are happy that Mary is Queen. Thomas Wyatt leads a rebellion against the Queen. He and his band of men go throughout England ransacking and pillaging homes. Wyatt comes to Cowdray Castle and takes its inhabitants hostage. He sees Celia and decides that he must have her. Celia leads Wyatt upstairs. While she thinks that she will enjoying being with Wyatt she quickly realizes that she doe snot want to have sex with him. Wyatt becomes aggressive and Celia begins to scream. Stephen storms into the room and rescues Celia. The two begin to kiss and are caught by Lady Ursula. Stephen flees. Ursula is so upset that she sends Celia to marry Sir John Hutchinson. Celia never consummates her marriage with Sir John. The two are friends, but never become lovers. After four years of marriage, Sir John dies. Celia goes back to Cowdray accompanied by Edwin Radcliffe, one of Sir Anthony's men. Edwin falls in love with Celia and wants to marry her. Celia does not feel strongly about him, but thinks he is a nice gentleman. When she arrives at Cowdray, she learns that Lady Ursula is sick and the Sir John has married Lady Ursula's old friend, Magdalene Dacre. Celia takes care of Lady Ursula until she dies. Celia then begins planning on how she can marry Edwin. Celia asks Sir Anthony for his approval. Once she gains it, the wedding between Celia and Edwin is set. Celia is ready to go through with the wedding until Stephen comes back to visit. Once Celia sees Stephen, she knows that she must be with him. She goes to see him at St Ann's Hill. Neither one of them can stop their feelings for one another and the two finally consummate their relationship. Stephen cannot believe what he has done. He tells Celia that he must leave and that she must marry Edwin. Stephen leaves the next day and Celia follows him. She disguises herself as she travels to find Stephen. After three months she makes her way to Igatham Mote where she finds a job as a house servant. Igatham is owned by the Allens. Mrs. Allen is a handsome, yet cruel woman. She is infatuated with Stephen. For a time, Celia does not reveal herself to Stephen. She waits until he is in his garden alone and then reveals herself. Stephen is shocked to see Celia but also happy. She tells him that she pregnant. Stephen cannot believe the news and he does not know what course of action to take. The next day is Lady Allen's birthday celebration. All the servants are allowed to come. Celia does not show at first, but Lady Allen demands that she come. Celia joins the rest of the servants. Celia is brazen and loud mouthed, performs with exuberant courtesy and offends Lady Allen. The rest of the night, Lady Allen stares at Celia. She notices Celia talk to Stephen and is jealous. Lady Allen then goes to Stephen's hut after the party. She witnesses Celia and Stephen making love. She also overhears the lovers planning to run away together the next day. Lady Allen goes back to the house. When Celia leaves Stephen, she goes back to the castle. She is caught by Lady Allen and three men. Lady Allen begins to choke Celia. The next day Stephen searches for Celia everywhere, but he cannot find her. He does not understand where she could have gone because they are supposed to leave today. As Stephen passes by the Great Hall, he sees Lady Allen. She is having men re-lay bricks in the hall. One of the men starts to apologize to Stephen. He says that they did not know what they were bringing up from the dungeon. Lady Allen tells the man to be quiet. Suddenly Stephen understands and he throws himself toward the wall to stop the men from laying the bricks. Lady Allen tells him that he cannot touch it because Celia is almost dead. The three men take Stephen out of the room. Later that day, they find he has committed suicide. When Celia Marsdon wakes up from her illness she does not remember the journey that she and Dr. Akananda have taken. They return to the house and find that Richard has had is own break down. The two lovers act like strangers at first. Dr. Akananda recommends they read the Marsdon Chronicle together. After reading it, the two realize that Celia was Celia de Bohun and Richard was Stephen Marsdon. The two realize that they can now be together because they have relived the events of the past and are now reunited in this lifetime. Green Darkness. We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method. Listeners also enjoyed. The Winthrop Woman. 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The marriage of the Englishman Richard Marsdon and his young American wife, Celia, slowly turns tragic as Richard withdraws into himself and Celia suffers a debilitating emotional breakdown. A wise mystic realizes that Celia can escape her past only by reliving it. She journeys back 400 years to her former life as the servant girl Celia de Bohun during the reign of Edward VI - and to her doomed love affair with the chaplain Stephen Marsdon. Although Celia and Stephen can't escape the horrifying consequences of their love, fate (and time) offer them another chance for redemption. Critic Reviews. More from the same. Author. The Winthrop Woman Katherine My Theodosia. Narrator. The Wedding The Last Anniversary Goldenhand. What listeners say about Green Darkness. Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews. Audible.com Reviews. Amazon Reviews. J 06-04-15. A different narrator would have made all the difference. The narrator's accents for the different characters were very good but this book has a lot of description and the enjoyment of the story was marred by the reader's monotone delivery and disregard for punctuation. Commas treated like periods and then other times periods were so lightly skipped over that everything ran together. Some of the highlights and critcal moments in the story were lost as a result. 16 people found this helpful. Patricia 09-26-15. hummm. Story was pretty predictable but interesting. The narrator was terrible and I found it hard to keep my attention because of it. 9 people found this helpful. Val 04-01-17. Worst narration ever. What disappointed you about Green Darkness? The story is timeless and enjoyable and deserves a narrator that is interested in the story. The narration is horrible. What was your reaction to the ending? (No spoilers please!) I'm not sure I'll make it to the ending. How did the narrator detract from the book? Her sing-song, dull tone of voice is such a detraction from an otherwise interesting and compelling novel. Her tone is both snide and insolent, which does not match the tone of the content and makes me wonder what's she's so mad about. What character would you cut from Green Darkness? None-- I would find another narrator. Any additional comments? 7 people found this helpful. Julia 05-20-18. Narrator ruined this for me. I love Anya Seton's books and I think this one was good and well written. The narrator completely ruined the experience for me and made it hard to listen to. I believe if this were to be re-recorded with a better narrator ( possibly Corrie James who read The Wintrop Woman) it would be a great success. I did not finish listening to the book and moved on. 4 people found this helpful. Marie 12-06-17. The narration is robotic. I could not listen to this story, though I tried. I made it twenty minutes and had to turn it off. The narration has been over-produced and sounds like a computer talking. I will maybe but the book because I loved the only other novel I've read by her, Katherine. I'm really disappointed as the story itself had great reviews. I listened to a sample of another of hers as well and it is very similarly narrated. 3 people found this helpful. Pita 01-20-15. A wonderful discovery. What did you love best about Green Darkness? I came upon this novel entirely by chance and did not realize that it was a best-seller in 1972 until I decided to research the author. I love historical fiction and quality or original offers in that genre have not been many over the past couple of years - "Wolf Hall" and "Bring Up the Bodies" being notable exceptions. This novel is perhaps more of a "historical romance". The story takes place during Tudor times but does not involve the better known Tudor nobles. It is absorbing and entertaining. The characters are full of human flaws and this makes them believable. What was one of the most memorable moments of Green Darkness? The encounters between the protagonists, being few and sparse in detail were precious. This novel has a "reincarnation" subplot that is quite unnecessary and it takes place in the 1960's. The central plot which takes place in Tudor England in places that still exist today is the bulk of the story and enough on itself. Would you listen to another book narrated by Heather Wilds? It took me a while to get use to this narrator's rhythm; having done so, I would listen to another narration by her. Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting? I found the story very engaging; once it hooked me I just wanted to keep on listening. Any additional comments? This was a treat. It had a bit of history, romance, murder, madness, metaphisics. all expertly but simply mixed to snare the reader. It is remarkable that it did not seem at all dated. Green Darkness. 1960s Great Britain back into mid-16th century England. reincarnation. undying loving. characters reborn but carrying the same damn baggage. all of that. for the most part this is an enjoyable novel about two lovers reborn who knows how many times, destined for tragic ends until they are able to sort out all of their issues. I loved the opening chapters: cosmopolitan aristocrats lounging around the pool, touring historical sites with rolled eyes, making loaded comments to each other during a 1960s Great Britain back into mid-16th century England. reincarnation. undying loving. characters reborn but carrying the same damn baggage. all of that. for the most part this is an enjoyable novel about two lovers reborn who knows how many times, destined for tragic ends until they are able to sort out all of their issues. I loved the opening chapters: cosmopolitan aristocrats lounging around the pool, touring historical sites with rolled eyes, making loaded comments to each other during a dinner party. it was all so fun and chic. I should read more 'contemporary' novels written during that era featuring similar characters. what a droll life! i also enjoyed the remaining nine-tenths of the book set during the reigns of Edward VI, Lady Jane, Bloody Mary, and Elizabeth the Great. Seton clearly spent a lot of time researching the book, and it shows. the details are amazing but never overwhelm the story. and she does more than show off her extensive research - the novel is written by a person with such a strong feeling for the era that I eventually felt like I was living there as well. I love that kind of immersive experience, a world that feels real. all of the characters felt real as well - even major figures like Edward, Mary, and Elizabeth who appear only briefly. the moments when the characters experience what their future lives hold in store for them were great, but even better were the eerie moments when they glimpse their past lives. Seton doesn't explore those past lives, pre-16th century, so I can only imagine what they were like based on those very brief and haunting bits of imagery. tragedy on a Grecian isle? maybe. my friend Richard criticizes the book for its gay character (reincarnated as well), but honestly I don't see a problem. I think Seton treated the 16th century version very fairly and sympathetically. his modern incarnation is dismissed as a "queer" by other characters, but that clearly is not Seton - it's her characters and the era itself. the villainess is brilliantly characterized. the petty, vindictive motivations. the weird rages during her many times of drunkenness. those dead black eyes. the big problem with the novel is in the characterization of its male lead. the protagonist Celia is very well done, three-dimensional and true to the era, frustrating and surprising, in general fairly passive but also often strong, or wayward, or defiant, or idiosyncratic. the sequence when she gives up on God was impressive. all in all, a richly developed character. her lover - not so much. well, he's well-developed but he's just such a pain in the ass. Stephen remains an obstinate, uptight, unappealing prude in each incarnation and is not only utterly unsympathetic but is genuinely a drag to have to read about. he's the only thing that brings this novel down. ugh. but all in a all, a good book and well worth reading for fans of historical melodramas. . more. I read this book when it was "new" and omg I LOVED it. It was complex and dark and romantic and my then 14 yr old self couldn't get enough. Someone commented that it's "dated". It wasn't then but it's a reason I've never tried to re-read it. I want to keep the feeling of how wonderful it was to younger less world-weary me. I read this book when it was "new" and omg I LOVED it. It was complex and dark and romantic and my then 14 yr old self couldn't get enough. Someone commented that it's "dated". It wasn't then but it's a reason I've never tried to re-read it. I want to keep the feeling of how wonderful it was to younger less world-weary me. . more. Rating: 3 stars out of five, but only because I still love the memory. The Publisher Says : This unforgettable story of undying love combines mysticism, suspense, mystery, and romance into a web of good and evil that stretches from 16th-century England to the present day. Richard Marsdon marries a young American woman named Celia, brings her to live at his English estate, and all seems to be going well. But now Richard has become withdrawn, and Celia is constantly haunted by a vague dread. When she Rating: 3 stars out of five, but only because I still love the memory. The Publisher Says : This unforgettable story of undying love combines mysticism, suspense, mystery, and romance into a web of good and evil that stretches from 16th-century England to the present day. Richard Marsdon marries a young American woman named Celia, brings her to live at his English estate, and all seems to be going well. But now Richard has become withdrawn, and Celia is constantly haunted by a vague dread. When she suffers a breakdown and wavers between life and death, a wise doctor realizes that only by forcing Celia to relive her past can he enable her to escape her illness. Celia travels back 400 years in time to her past life as a beautiful but doomed servant. Through her eyes, we see the England of the Tudors, torn by religious strife, and experience all the pageantry, lustiness, and cruelty of the age. As in other historical romance titles by this author, the past comes alive in this flamboyant classic novel. My Review : My sister used to have a book store. She, our mother, and I all spent the summer of 1973, damn near 40 years ago now, reading this book. We'd been stealing it back and forth from each other until finally she gave Mama and me our own copies so she could read it in peace. We did a sort of group read on the book, and oh my heck how we liked it! I was a teenager then. I wasn't an inexperienced reader, but I was completely suckered in by anything to do with reincarnation. Mama was just getting the Jeebus infection that ate her sense of humor, compassion, and decency. all oddly enough while sexually abusing her teenaged son, funny how often religion masks corruption. and my sister was in one of the periodic hellish patches that have punctuated her road through life. We all resonated with the travails of the characters, trying to work out their manifold interconnections and karmic debts. The book's very Gothicness was deeply appealing to each of us for our own reasons, and gave us hours and hours of fun things to talk about. For that, a whole star in grateful memory. Rereading this at fifty-two was probably a mistake. The writing is very much what one would expect of an historical novelist whose career began in the 1940s. She was renowned in the day for her meticulous research, and yet says in her Preface (p. vi of the 1973 Houghton Mifflin hardcover I got from the liberry), “Source books make for tedious listing, but for the Tudor period Green Darkness > I have tried to consult all the pertinent ones.” Imagine someone, even a novelist, trying to get away with that now! There would be calumnious mutterings and sulphrous aspersions cast on the character and the ability of such an author. As if it matters in a work of fiction. The humid Gothic atmosphere of lust and love denied, the surrendered to, then disastrously brought to a close, was a little hard on my older self. I like romantic stories just fine, but the moralizing you can keep. And there is a deal of moralizing! Whee dawggie! The gay characters are ugly. as within, so without, and Seton clearly has the attitude of her day towards gay men. the lusty lower-class wenches get their bastards and get turned out, the Catholic Church and its hypocrisy suffer agonies at the hands of the vile Protestant politicians. Seton was raised a Theosophist. good people turn hard and cold when given property to protect. the Exotic Hindu Doctor who understands Modern Medicine but Knows How to Be In Touch With the Spirits, oof. oh, the lot! So not so much on the attitude. I get it, and in those days I absorbed it because it was the way my family thought, but how I wish I could go back to 1973 and smack this book out of my young hands! Along with Stranger in a Strange Land , its misogyny and homophobia leached right into my brain and lodged there. Never made me one whit less gay, just made me feel terrible about it, like the culture's messages continue to do to young and impressionable kids to this day. But the fact that the lady wrote this, her next-to-last book, when she was nearing seventy and had only just been divorced from her husband of nigh on forty years, and was beginning her long decline into ill health, makes Green Darkness a poignant re-read for me. Her life was unraveling, and mine was too (what little there was of it at that point); I think both my mother and my sister felt the same way. I suspect some resonance of that bound all of us to this book and spoke to each of us about its unhappy people in unhappy lives. There is, in the best romantic tradition, a happy ending. But I for one have never believed it. Following the Trail of Anya Seton's Green Darkness. Ask a fan of historical fiction for a list of favorite books and, almost inevitably, one by Anya Seton will be somewhere on the list. Green Darkness and Katherine are definitely near the top of my own list. I read Green Darkness as a teenager and never thought of it as anything other than fiction until I was planning a trip to England in 1993 and learned that many of the places in the book exist and can still be visited. The Story. The story begins with Celia -- a young American woman, recently married to an English baronet who has feelings of deja vu when she visits certain places. After a disturbing incident with her new husband, she is cast into a physical state in which she relives a previous existence in 16th Century England. There is danger for Celia in both her current physical state as well as the unresolved difficulties of her previous life, and in both lives, there is a somewhat knowledgeable and sympathetic character who tries to help her. The Spread Eagle. A view of the Spread Eagle. My first realization that the places in Green Darkness were not fiction came when I was making hotel reservations and ran across a listing for the Spread Eagle hotel in Midhurst. Though it had been nearly 20 years since I'd read the book, the hotel name caught my eye. In her past life, the character of Celia had worked as a tavern maid at the Spread Eagle in Midhurst. The hotel brochure said the hotel had been around since the 15th century. It was in the right place -- so I made reservations to spend a night there (I was going to be in Sussex anyway, or so I told myself), though I wasn't really sure it was the same place. There was no World Wide Web to check things easily in 1993! Another view of the Spread Eagle. The hotel itself was wonderful. They say they have been serving travelers as a coaching inn since 1430 and I can believe it. We had a room on the top floor in the oldest part of the hotel, with a low beamed ceiling and casement windows looking out over a bank of roses. We had breakfast in the restaurant, which has an immense fireplace and what (I think) were some sort of puddings hanging from the ceiling. And it was, indeed, the same Spread Eagle as the one in Green Darkness . Even better, Cowdray House, Celia's later home, was just down the road! Cowdray House. The ruins of Cowdray House. Cowdray House is now in ruins, but there is enough left to imagine the place as it must have been when it was owned by Sir Anthony Browne, the first Viscount Montague -- another character in Green Darkness . The ruins are haunting and evocative and it's easy to see how they may have inspired Anya Seton when she wrote Green Darkness -- especially the legend of Viscount Montague's curse. Nigel Sadler has written a detailed history and description of Cowdray House and if you are interested in the place, his website is well worth a visit. Cowdray House from atop the walls. There are numerous other places from the novel that you can visit, but Ightham Mote, the final home of the medieval Celia, is probably the most intriguiging. It is a medieval moated manor house, now owned by the National Trust. Ightham Mote does indeed have a ghost story -- the body of a woman discovered in a walled up room--just as the story is presented in Green Darkness . The woman is thought to have been Dame Dorothy Selby whose misdirected warning letter alerted Parliament to the Gunpowder Plot. I did not get to visit Ightham Mote when I was there, but it makes a good excuse for another trip to the area. (As if I needed one!) All in all, the short time I spent in Midhurst was one of the unexpected highlights from my first trip to England; I definitely intend to visit again! Resources. -- Text and photos @ Tamara Mazzei, 1993 and 2002. Would you like to join our Historical Fiction and Fantasy e-mail discussion list? Please enter your email address and click Yes (only once). Copyright © 2002-2009 Trivium Publishing, LLC. All rights reserved. Privacy Policy.