NEW hardcover

Town and Country Girouard, Mr Mark

In this collection of essays and articles best selling author Mark Girouard writes of places he has visited in town and country Mixing erudition with anecdote, he offers fascinating insights into both buildings and their inhabitants He tells how he first became interested in architecture, describes the country houses which he visited as a boy, provides an authoritative interpretation of the origins of English rococo art, analyzes the formation of an English seaside resort, recreates the Georgian architecture and polite society of Jane Austens world, and traces changing attitudes toward the landscape in architecture from eighteenthcentury Britain to twentiethcentury AmericaOld Slaughters CoffeeHouse in the mideighteenth century; Holdenby, an Elizabethan great house built by a royal favourite who was called by one of his contemporaries a mere vegetable of the court that sprung up at night and sank again at noon; Belvedere, the eighteenthcentury Irish country house that was witness to a tragic story of adultery and revenge: these are just a few of the buildings described by Girouard in these delightful essays on architecture and society in bygone eras in England and IrelandWritten with his customary wit and elegance, this collection of Girouards finest essays illuminates not only architecture and social history but also the man who has explored both with such elan