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PAKENHAM,VALERIE: : THE BIG HOUSE IN IRELAND

LONDON.CASSELL & CO,2000.

ISBN 0304354228.

UK,Qrto HB+dw/dj,1st edn.FINE/FINE. No owner inscrptn and no price-clip to dw/dj.Bright,crisp,clean,matt, montage'd colour pictorial photographic illustrated front panel of dw/dj,with white lettering,a colour illuminated address to the 6th Earl of Longford to rear panel of dw/dj; with negligible shelf-wear and creasing to edges and corners - no nicks or tears present.Top+fore-edges bright and clean; contents bright,tight,clean,solid and sound -pristine - no dog-ear reading creases to any pages' corners, appears unread - apart from my own collation.Bright,crisp,clean,sharp-cornered,publisher's original plain pale blue cloth bds with bright, crisp,stamped silver gilt letters to spine/backstrip,headband and immaculate oval,colour portrait miniatures to a pale blue background,illustrated eps.UK,Qrto HB+dw/dj,1st edn,6-192pp [paginated] includes an introduction,3 sections comprising 5,6, and 6 chapters respectively,lavishly illustrated with contemporary,historical b/w+ colour paintings, drawings, caricatures and colour photographs, further reading and an index.Plus [unpaginated] half-title with colour scenic photographic frntis,title page,contents list/table and acknowledgements to recto of last page of the index. THE BIG HOUSE has haunted the Irish landscape and imagination for nearly four hundred years,since the first English 'adventurers' began to build in the wake of the Elizabethan re-conquest of Ireland.It has inspired poetry and fiction, admiration and fierce denunciation. The ruins of its demesnes and woodlands can still be seen,even where the Big Houses themselves have vanished. This anthology attempts to recreate the world of the Big House from the words of those who lived there -or stayed there - quoting from letters,diaries,memoirs,household accounts and traveller's tales. Valerie Pakenham has also been able to draw on a huge reservoir of private collections of family papers,many of them hitherto unpublished. The extracts have been organized thematically,dealing first with the building of the Big Houses and the laying out of their parks and gardens,their furnishing and their plumbing and heating - or the lack of them. The second part of the book is devoted to the private lives of those who lived there,many of them as racy as the stock characters of Irish fiction: duels,adultery, abductions,family feuds - and extravagant hospitality leading to gout and insolvency.It also deals with their relations with their retainers and servants,often very different from the ordered English life 'below stairs'. The third section of the book sketches in the relation of the Big House with the world outside its gates,including its response to the horrors of the Great Famine,to the Land War of the 1880s - and to the Troubles of the early 1920s,which led to the burning of over seventy country houses and the collapse of the Ascendncy world.The final chapter deals with the survivors who chose to stay on - and the astonishing renaissance of the Irish country house in the 21stC. The anthology is sumptuously ilustrated throughout with both colour+b/w contemporary paintings, drawings,photographs and caricatures.There are also superb new colour photographs taken by Thomas Pakenham.Valerie Pakenham came to live in Ireland when she married Thomas Pakenham.She and her husband live in a rambling gothic revival castle in Co. Westmeath, celebrated mainly as the first house in Ireland to enjoy central heating. Thomas Pakenham author of 'The Boer War' and 'The Scramble for Africa', has recently diversified from writing history to photography for his bestselling 'Meetings with Remarkable Trees'.He has taken superb new photographs in colour especially for this anthology. Since April 2013 and again in March 2015,and in this year too,the UK Post Office has altered it's Pricing in Proportion template,altering it's prices,weight allowances, dimensions and lowered it's qualifying compensation rates too! So,please contact seller,because of the value and the weight - nearly 1.5Kg unpackaged - of this item for correct,insured shipping/P+p quotes - particularly ALL overseas buyers -BEFORE ordering through the order page!

UK,Qrto HB+dw/dj,1st edn.

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