Some Country Houses and their Owners (Penguin English Journeys) - Softcover

Lees-Milne, James

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0141190906 ISBN 13: 9780141190907

Publisher: Penguin Classics, 2009

Synopsis

The delightful, gossipy diaries of James Lees-Milne describe his encounters with the owners of country houses - from eccentric lords and oil millionaires to raffish socialists - as he travelled over England saving properties for the National Trust. Here are sharply observed accounts of dinner with Vita Sackville-West at Sissinghurst; Winston Churchill's bedroom at Chartwell; T. E. Lawrence's dilapidated Dorset cottage; and war damage to a great house in Derby. All are infused with his love of beauty and his sympathy for those giving up their ancestral homes forever.

Generations of inhabitants have helped shape the English countryside - but it has profoundly shaped us too.It has provoked a huge variety of responses from artists, writers, musicians and people who live and work on the land - as well as those who are travelling through it.English Journeys celebrates this long tradition with a series of twenty books on all aspects of the countryside, from stargazey pie and country churches, to man's relationship with nature and songs celebrating the patterns of the countryside (as well as ghosts and love-struck soldiers).

About this title

About the Author:

James Lees-Milne (1908-97) made his name as the National Trust's country house expert, helping to rescue some of England's loveliest houses. He is now best known for his diaries, published in the 1970s and hailed as a masterpiece comparable to Pepys.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

`Lord Berwick talked to me of the ghosts at Attingham. Did I think it possible that one had been locked in the housemaids' cupboard?'

'How splendidly proportioned, clean-limbed and precise this great house is, springing straight out of rough grass'

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin Classics
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0141190906
• ISBN 13: 9780141190907
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Number of pages: 144