Life in the English Country House

This social and architectural history follows the English country house from the medieval courtyard dwelling through the Tudor great house, the baroque and Palladian mansion, and the Victorian country seat, into the twentieth century. Girouard treats the building as a machine for a way of life: how halls, withdrawing rooms, back stairs, and service wings expressed rank, hospitality, and the separation of family from servants. He links plans and facades to hunting, politics, display, and changing ideas of comfort and privacy. The book is a study of houses as social organisms, not a gazetteer of individual estates or a purely stylistic survey.

Bound in colour picture printed and blocked cloth with a design by John Pumfrey. Printed and blocked slipcase.