' A fantastically readable and endlessly fascinating book...
Delicious, occasionally fantastical, revealing in ways that
Downtown Abbey never was.' Rachel Cooke, Observer
A Daily Telegraph Book of the Year
Adrian Tinniswood OBE FSA is the author of fifteen books on social and architectural history, including Behind the Throne- A Domestic History of the Royal Household; The Long Weekend- Life in the English Country House Between the Wars, a New York Timesand Sunday Times bestseller; His Invention So Fertile- A Life of Christopher Wren and The Verneys- a True Story of Love, War and Madness in Seventeenth-Century England, which was shortlisted for the BBC/Samuel Johnson Prize. He has worked with a number of heritage organisations including the Heritage Lottery Fund and the National Trust, and is currently Senior Research Fellow in History at the University of Buckingham and Visiting Fellow in Heritage and History at Bath Spa University.
[A] fantastically readable and endlessly fascinating book…
Delicious, occasionally fantastical, revealing in ways that Downton
Abbey never was. It is as if Tinniswood is at the biggest, wildest,
most luxuriantly decadent party ever thrown, and he knows
everyone.
*Observer*
Tinniswood and his publishers should be congratulated for issuing
this elegant, encyclopedic and entertaining history… We are in the
company of a confident and skilled historian who understands the
mores of his era and wears his learning lightly… This is a
handsomely illustrated pick’n’mix of mansions, manors, castles and
palaces…. Tinniswood expands our Sunday evening viewing with the
kind of detail you can’t invent… Deserves to be on every costume
drama producer’s bookshelf.
*The Times*
He has produced a luscious, summery book, full of amiable anecdotes
and photographs of striking interiors, celebrating headstrong
optimists who defied the defeatism of the times. The Long Weekend
resembles a well-kept hothouse festooned with fruit ripe for the
plucking.
*Sunday Times*
Wonderfully opulent, richly textured… The opening chapters of The
Long Weekend paint an evocative picture… In telling us how the
English country house changed, he is, of course, telling us how
England changed too.
*Sunday Telegraph*
[A] masterpiece of social history.
*Daily Mail*
Many of Tinniswood’s anecdotes are extraordinary… Painstakingly
researched detail that makes The Long Weekend so entertaining… A
rich, multilayered and well-illustrated account of a style of live
that disappeared with the Second World War. Lovers of…Brideshead
Revisited will relish it.
*Sunday Express*
[A] deliciously jaunty and wonderfully knowledgeable book…
Tinniswood displays a terrific insider’s grasp of gossip, while
cramming his text with the stories of sport, sex, food, royalty,
design, ruination and joy that defined these mansions… Meticulous,
irresistible story.
*Spectator*
This delicious book achieves completely what it sets out to do.
*Daily Mail*
Tinniswood gives us many entertaining stories about the whimsical
extravagances of the new country-housers… The Long Weekend is a
celebration of fantasy and yearning cunningly wrapped up in
pragmatism and practicality: about ancient castles with top-notch
plumbing.
*Financial Times*
Almost indecently enjoyable… Splendidly contrary book… [Tinniswood
has a] sharp pen and a squirrel’s eye for detail… Erudite, funny
and oddly poignant.
*Literary Review*
A perfect piece of escapism…but also intelligent and scholarly
social history.
*Guardian*
Immaculately produced… Tinniswood is a wonderfully clear writer,
lively and curious, and with a jaunty point of view.
*Mail on Sunday*
A definitive social history that combines anecdote and narrative
with scholarship.
*Daily Telegraph*
A splendidly enjoyable summer-weekend read.
*Tablet*
[It] provides rich detail from all corners, uncovering plenty of
angst, but also much optimism.
*The Economist*
Brimming with both architectural detail and social insight… [A]
highly enjoyable book… This is a delicious cocktail of a book,
combining many ingredients and presenting an informed survey of the
interwar years as seductively as that period…demands.
*Country Life*
Enchanting. However, while poignant, it’s also not without its
robust historical points… Beautifully written.
*BBC History Magazine*
[A] Detailed and fascinating study.
*Western Morning News*
[It] promises rich tales of decadence, scandal and extravagant
water features.
*Times Literary Supplement*
The rise, fall and transformation of English country houses between
the two world wars…has seldom sounded so interesting. Meticulously
researched.
*Choice Magazine*
[A} fascinating text… The book is a great read and a window on a
lost world.
*Sunday Telegraph*
Beautifully illustrated… [It] overflows with entertaining
detail.
*The Times*
Tinniswood uses lively local detail.
*Times Literary Supplement*
[It] combines a panoramic view of life and architecture in the
interwar years with pin-sharp detail and the sort of springy prose
that comes with complete command of the material.
*London Review of Books*
This is a lively and hugely entertaining history… It’s packed with
very funny anecdotes… A delight.
*Mail on Sunday*
Tinniswood paints a vivid portrait of the period
*Catholic Herald*
A detailed and appreciated look at the phenomenon [of country
houses]… Tinniswood writes elegantly, in complete charge of his
material. The book is a joy to hold in your hand.
*Spears Wealth Management Survey*
Wittily written and beautifully illustrated, Tinniswood’s book
recreates a world far more peculiar, but at times rather more
enviable, than any fictional version.
*Guardian, Book of the Year*
[A] compelling volume of social history.
*Daily Mail, Book of the Year*
[A] brilliant book about life in the English country house.
*Guardian, Book of the Year*
A scandal-packed glimpse into the glamourous Downton Abbey-esque
world of English country houses… ****
*Love it!*
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