Written during World War II, I Capture the Castle was the first novel written by British author Dodie Smith. This fiction is a journal entry that revolves around the lives and adventures of an impoverished and eccentric family living in a decaying Suffolk castle in the 1930s.

As a voracious reader, Cassandra found resemblance between the situations of the Mortmain children and the Bennet sisters in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. To what degree do you find their situations comparable, especially in terms of marriage and domestic life?

Why is Cassandra encouraged to be ‘brisk’ with Stephen in the book? What does this reveal to us about class in England during the mid-twentieth century? How does this story reflect the evolution of English society’s viewpoint on women throughout the first half of the century? How do the female characters in the novel such as Cassandra, Rose, Topaz, Mrs. Cotton, and Mrs. Fox-Cotton have different perspectives on the roles and opportunities presented to them both within and outside of their families?