A great online resource for help with Brideshead Revisited

As you read Brideshead Revisited, there may be some confusing terms or strange references.

Some of this is because of the differences between British English and American English; some of it is because the book is from the 1940s and therefore talks about some unfamiliar things.

For example, during the scenes at Oxford University, the book often mentions that a certain student gets "sent down." This is just a fancy British way of saying "kicked out of school."

For most of these terms, you should be able to just read on without being too confused, or you can figure them out from context clues.

But there is also an excellent website with lots of helpful notes for each page of the novel – use it if needed:

Here is the page of notes for the Prologue: http://www.abbotshill.freeserve.co.uk/AmPrologue.html

Here is the page of notes for Book One:

http://www.abbotshill.freeserve.co.uk/AmBook1Chapter1.html

If you click on "Next page" down at the bottom of these pages on this site, you'll see that the notes go on for the entire book, organized by page number in the American edition. If you're stumped with a reference or strange expression, try this site for help.