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Private Life in Britain’s Stately Homes: Masters and Servants in the Golden Age (Brief Histories)
£2.80
The Victorian and Edwardian eras in the run-up to 1914 marked the golden age of the English country house, when opulence and formality attained a level that would never be matched again. The ease of these perfect settings for flirtation and relaxation was maintained by a large and well-trained staff of servants. Although those ‘in service’ worked very long hours and had little personal freedom, many were proud of their positions and grateful for the relative security these gave. Indeed, the strictly hierarchical world below stairs could be more snobbish than that of a house’s owners. Michael Paterson skilfully and entertainingly explores the myths and realities of this vanished world, both upstairs and down.
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Additional information
| Publisher | Robinson (6 Sept. 2012) |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| File size | 1336 KB |
| Text-to-Speech | Enabled |
| Screen Reader | Supported |
| Enhanced typesetting | Enabled |
| X-Ray | Not Enabled |
| Word Wise | Enabled |
| Sticky notes | On Kindle Scribe |
| Print length | 297 pages |
| Page numbers source ISBN | 1780336896 |
by Simon Vanhove
It seems like a book written with the purpose of profiting from the recent interest of the public, fuelled by series as Upstairs, downstairs and Downton Abbey. Contains no references, bibliography or ‘further reading’ whatsoever.
Entertainment for a housemom on a rainy day…
by Mrs. L Miles
If you like Downton Abbey this is well worth a read, very interesting as to how ‘life’ was in the 19th/20th century.
by madmerc
very interesting read
by paul overfield
Excellent
by Alexandra
The book gives facts about life in some of the most famous palaces, belonging to wealthy families, where there were hard working servants. There is some glamour but mostly it is about the long hours spent in the kitchen or the drawing room cleaning.
by RR
I bought this book off the strength of its sample chapter. I liked the style from the perspective of a visitor, first person perspective on country house life. But that is the only chapter in that style and I have read a great many similar books to this with a great overlap of material, so I was disappointed to find it continue as a very standard account. There are also many references to visual aspects of houses which are not pictured, making it necessary to read in close proximity to a computer to call up pictures of the references. There are finally some pictures in the epilogue, but many are not captioned, so for someone with an interest in country houses (the target reader!) it is a huge frustration not to know where these buildings can be found, if indeed they still stand.