Mr. Stevens, the central character and first-person narrator of The Remains of the Day, is a butler for Mr. Farraday, a wealthy American who has purchased Darlington Hall, the country house that Stevens has worked in for much of his life. The novel opens with Stevens explaining (somewhat disingenuously) that he has accepted an offer from his employer of a few days holiday because he wishes to visit the West Country and persuade Miss Kenton, a former housekeeper, to return to Darlington Hall in order to resolve some problems relating to a “faulty staff plan”. The novel then follows Stevens as he makes his way, in Mr Farraday's Ford, through the English countryside, via Salisbury, Dorset, Somerset and Devon, to Cornwall where, in wh

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Published 16 June 2003

Citation: Teverson, Andrew. "The Remains of the Day". The Literary Encyclopedia. 16 June 2003.
[http://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=7561, accessed 9 February 2010.]