If You’re Mad for ‘Downton,’ Publishers Have Reading List
From NYT: 
Publishers are convinced that viewers who obsessively tune in to follow the war-torn travails of an aristocratic family and its meddling but loyal servants are also literary types, likely to devour books on subjects the series touches.
Publishers are convinced that viewers who obsessively tune in to follow the war-torn travails of an aristocratic family and its meddling but loyal servants are also literary types, likely to devour books on subjects the series touches.So they are rushing to print books that take readers back to Edwardian and wartime England: stories about the grandeur of British estates (“Lady Almina and the Real Downton Abbey: The Lost Legacy of Highclere Castle” by the Countess of Carnarvon); the recollections of a lady’s maid (“Rose: My Life in Service to Lady Astor” by Rosina Harrison); and World War I (“A Bitter Truth” by Charles Todd), the bloody backdrop to the show’s second season, which had its premiere in the United States last Sunday on PBS, drawing 4.2 million viewers.
“We’re just riding that ‘Downton Abbey’ wave,” said Stephen Morrison, the editor in chief and associate publisher of Penguin Books, who watched Season 1 last year and began planning which books to release around the time of the Season 2 premiere. “I think the story lends itself to great television but it is also the themes of great literary writing, with all the twists and turns in the characters.”
Book publicists have swarmed Twitter, where “Downton Abbey” has been endlessly discussed and analyzed, to drop suggestions and link to alluring titles in both their e-book and print editions, borrowing hashtags like #downtonabbey and #downtonpbs that are already in heavy circulation.
“Love Downton Abbey?” the Knopf Twitter account asked on Tuesday. “May we suggest Wade Davis’s INTO THE SILENCE — a book capturing the twilight of this elite #downtonpbs.”
Rebecca Lang, a publicist for Penguin, wrote on Twitter on Monday, “Are all ladies’ maids as manipulative as O’Brien? Find out by reading ROSE, written by a true lady’s maid.”
Bookstores, in the middle of a typical January lag in sales, have tried to seize the moment. Barnes & Noble is running a promotion featuring books that connect to “Downton Abbey,” including , a novel about the quirks of the British upper class.
Last Friday, Northshire Bookstore in Manchester Center, Vt., hosted a preview of the first episode of Season 2, which was attended by more than 50 people. The store also set up a prominent display of a dozen “Downton”-related titles.
“It’s a great opportunity to build some sales,” said Stan Hynds, a book buyer for the store. “We’re trying to push books on the British aristocracy, the Titanic and World War I as well.” For some antsy “Downton” fans, picking up a book or two has helped pass the time between episodes. Claire Griffiths, of Houston, drove to her local bookstore on Friday in search of something “Downton-esque,” leaving with a war novel and “Below Stairs,” a memoir by a kitchen maid.
“I’m just enjoying the show so much, I thought I needed to get a book about it,” Ms. Griffiths said. “And I was watching the war scenes and thinking, I don’t know enough about this. So maybe I can learn something in the process.”
Julian Fellowes, the creator of the series, has been deliberate about dropping open-ended references into the scripts, said his niece, Jessica Fellowes, who wrote “The World of Downton Abbey,” a best seller in Britain. It was published last month in the United States by St. Martin’s Press, which printed 100,000 copies, and it has cracked the Top 100 list on Amazon.
“He wants to drive people to find out more for themselves, whether through Google or in books,” Ms. Fellowes said in a telephone interview. “He was always deliberately oblique.”
For publishers, the craze over “Downton” serves as a kind of mood ring revealing the cultural tastes of viewers who are also likely to be book buyers, in the way that “Mad Men” inspired the revival of skinny ties and patterned sheath dresses (though no one seems to be suggesting that “Downton Abbey” will rekindle a longing for the corset).
LuAnn Walther, the editorial director for several imprints at Knopf, said that editors there had dug into the backlist to find any books that they could resurrect in time for Season 2.
One book, “War Poems,” is a collection that includes many examples from the 1910s, an especially rich period for poetry, she said.
Sales representatives have been calling bookstores to suggest titles that would be appropriate for a “Downton”-themed display, including a fresh paperback edition of “Parade’s End” by Ford Madox Ford, considered a masterpiece war novel.
“We’ve seen so much from World War II, but we haven’t seen much from this period, and I think Americans are getting interested in that, partly because of the show,” Ms. Walther said.
St. Martin’s Press, which published Mr. Fellowes’s satirical novels, plans to repackage them with covers that refer to his title as the creator of “Downton Abbey.”
Some recently published books were the result of fortunate timing. Bruce H. Franklin, the publisher of Westholme Publishing, a small press in Yardley, Pa., just reissued “What the Butler Winked At,” a memoir by Eric Horne, who worked as a butler for more than 50 years, beginning in the 1860s.
Mr. Franklin said he did not own a television and had heard about “Downton Abbey” only when a sales representative for his distributor excitedly pointed out that the book might pick up sales from fans of the show. So far, he has gone back to press three times.
On Tuesday, Joe Pilla, a buyer at Rizzoli bookstore in Manhattan, placed an order for “Downton”-related books, including “The Decline and Fall of the British Aristocracy” by David Cannadine.
Mr. Pilla said the current “Downton” rage recalled the 1970s, when he was working in an Atlanta-area bookstore and “Upstairs, Downstairs,” a precursor to “Downton,” was sending people into bookstores.
“Those public TV audiences are book-buying audiences,” Mr. Pilla said.
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