The Power and the Glory: The Country House Before the Great War

"The Power and the Glory" by Adrian Tinniswood is a captivating read that explores the excess, intrigue, and absurdities of life in the late Victorian and Edwardian country house. It reveals a golden age of privilege and hedonism, where dukes and duchesses mingled with aristocratic society hostesses and self-made millionaires. The book is praised for its scintillating and brilliant storytelling, making it a "DAILY TELEGRAPH" Book of the Year.

Format: Hardback
Length: 432 pages
Publication date: 03 October 2024
Publisher: Vintage Publishing

Glamour, scholarship, and superlative storytelling combine in Adrian Tinniswood's captivating exploration of the excess, intrigue, and absurdities of life in the late Victorian and Edwardian country house. In the decades before the First World War, the owners of the nation's stately homes revelled in a golden age of glory and glamour, where privilege and hedonism went hand in hand with duty and honour. This was a time when the ancestral seats of ancient nobility stood side by side with the fabulous palaces of Jewish bankers and Indian princes, when dukes and duchesses mixed with aristocratic society hostesses who had learned to dance in the chorus line and self-made millionaires who had been raised in the slums of Manchester and Birmingham. The Power and the Glory explores the country house during this golden age, when Britain ruled over a quarter of the world's population, when its stately homes were at their most opulent, and when, for the privileged few, life in the country house was the best life of all. "A wonderful book," writes Judith Flanders, and "scintillating and brilliant," according to Gareth Russell. The Daily Telegraph has hailed it as one of the "Book of the Year."

Weight: 692g
Dimension: 244 x 164 x 41 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781787334168