At the end of his three decades of service at Darlington Hall, Stevens embarks on a country drive, during which he looks back over his career to reassure himself that he has served humanity by serving “a great gentleman. The Remains of the Day is a profoundly compelling portrait of the perfect English butler and of his fading, insular world postwar England. A tragic, spiritual portrait of a perfect English butler and his reaction to his fading insular world in post-war England. ” But lurking in his memory are doubts about the true nature of Lord Darlington’s “greatness” and graver doubts about his own faith in the man he served. 1990. A wonderful, wonderful book.