Diana Books in Order

The Diana story is a long, unsettled romance set against class difference, ambition, and the upheavals of the twentieth century. At its centre are Jan Leigh, a bright but poor country boy, and Diana Gayelorde-Sutton, the striking, strong minded daughter of a wealthy Devon landowner. He is drawn to her almost at once. She changes the shape of his life, but never in a simple or comfortable way.

Most of the story is seen through Jan. That matters, because part of the series is about what happens when someone from outside privilege tries to make himself equal to the world that dazzles him. Jan studies, works, leaves home, and tries to build a future by effort and talent. Diana has ambitions and pride of her own, and she is never just a prize at the end of the road. She can be magnetic, difficult, inspiring, and exasperating, sometimes all at once.

This is not a tidy courtship.

The setting moves well beyond the Devon countryside. As Jan grows older, the story stretches into journalism, city life, and wartime service, while the larger history of Britain keeps interrupting private plans. That is part of what gives the books their pull. The relationship is not tested by one misunderstanding or one obvious obstacle. It is tested by time, class, work, distance, and the fact that both people keep changing.

The original story was first told in two books, There Was a Fair Maid Dwelling and The Unjust Skies, and later brought together as Diana. The tone is romantic, but not dreamy in a soft way. There is longing here, and frustration too. Delderfield is interested in attraction, certainly, but he is just as interested in pride, self invention, and the hard question of whether love can survive the lives people build around it.

If you come to this series expecting a straightforward historical love story, it is more restless than that. It keeps asking why some bonds refuse to die even when they repeatedly fail to settle. The story was later adapted for television, and it makes sense that it was. The emotions are large, the settings are vivid, and Jan and Diana stay under each other's skin for a very long time.