An Exuberant Catalogue of Dreams: The Americans Who Revived the Country House in Britain by Clive Aslet

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To a modern visitor nothing will seem more British than a classic country house like Cliveden or Leeds Castle. But the truth is actually very different. That such fabulous places exist in their present form - or in the case of, say, Blenheim, survive in the ownership of the family - is as much as anything down to American money and taste. Now, for the first time, Clive Aslet's magnificent book reveals the extent of this remarkable phenomenon.

Covering eighteen Americans and their houses - from the captivating May Goelet and Floors Castle in Scotland to the big game hunter Willie James and West Dean Park on the south coast - he illustrates the varied destinies by which stupendously wealthy Americans ended up owning great stately piles, and the variety of transformations they wrought upon them.

Some of the marriages between aristocrats and heiresses were happy, others distinctly less so. Dowries went on new roofs to keep the rain out and electric lighting and central heating to modernise dwellings that could be as wintry as the hearts of their ancestral owners. For self-made magnates like William Randolph Hearst or Gordon Selfridge a country house was a rich man's folly - Hearst filled St Donat's castle in Wales with untold fittings and trophies but hardly ever visited it, Selfridge's pharaonic vision for Hengistbury Head never escaped the drawing board. For others, like Andrew Carnegie at Skibo or Sir Paul Getty at Wormsley, it was the chance to out-do the natives by creating idylls of baronial splendour or arcadian cricket fields.

But the American influence, as Clive Aslet shows, was lasting, and profound beyond architecture and design. What became known as the `country house look' was codified by an American - Nancy Lancaster. The greatest of early twentieth-century gardens, Hidcote, was created by an American, Lawrence Johnston. It was an American romance - with Wallis Simpson at Fort Belvedere - that caused Edward VIII to abdicate. Illustrated throughout with magnificent photographs, An Exuberant Catalogue of Dreams is a fascinating chronicle of how it happened that, as Gladstone's Chancellor of the Exchequer remarked in 1898, `We are all Americans now'.
Publication Details

Title: An Exuberant Catalogue of Dreams: The Americans Who Revived the Country House in Britain

Author(s):

  • Clive Aslet

Illustrator:

Binding: Hardcover

Published by: Aurum Press: , 2013

Edition:

ISBN: 9781781310946 | 1781310947

208 pages. 23.49cm x 2.24cm x 29.54cm

  • ENG- English
Book Condition: Very Good
5406e

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Product information

What does the Book Condition Very Good mean? Good? Fair?
See our descriptions of book descriptions here: book's conditions.
What does ffep stand for?
Front-facing endpaper - the first page of a book inside the cover. This page is typically blank. Often people will write their name on this page at the top, or a gift message - which is why you will see ‘owner’s name on ffep’ in some of our book descriptions.
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What is foxing?
Foxing is an age-related process of deterioration that causes spots and browning on old books. The causes of foxing are not well understood, but high humidity may contribute to to foxing. 
Foxing - Wikipedia
What is tanning?
Age tanning, or browning, occurs over time on the pages of books. This process can show up on just the edges of pages, when this occurs it is sometimes referred to as "edge tanning." This kind of deterioration is commonly seen in books printed before the advent of acid-free paper in the 1980s.
r/BookCollecting - Is this mold or normal aging for a well used book?
 
Where do you get your books from?
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Are your photos of the actual books being sold?
It depends - we have sometimes used stock images for very common books but are in the process of photographing our entire inventory. This will take awhile to finish! If we have 10 copies of the Da Vinci code all in Very Good condition, we will just photograph one and use that to represent all 10 in stock. However if the next copy of worn and only in Fair condition, we will photograph that separately and create a new listing for it.
What is the most expensive book you have sold?
To date it was a first edition first printing copy of JRR Tolkien’s The Two Towers. It was in very poor condition but still was worth over NZ$1000.
What is your favourite book to sell?
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Why do you also sell mailing supplies?
We had a lot of trouble sourcing the right sort of bubble mailer to send our books out in, and eventually found a supplier of high quality mailers in China to import them from. We figured other sellers of small items in New Zealand might like to also use them.
Are you open to the public?
Unfortunately our books are all stored in a large warehouse in boxes so they are not easily browsable. The SKU number for a book tells us where to find it in the warehouse, but there is absolutely no order to where things are stored! We do allow pickups so if you find what you like online you can order it and drop in to pick up p, saving on shipping.

 

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Contact Details

  • Trade Name: Book Express Ltd
  • Phone Number: (+64) 22 852 6879
  • Email: sales@bookexpress.co.nz
  • Address: 35 Nathan Terrace, Shannon, 4821, New Zealand.
  • GST Number: 103320957 - We are registered for GST in New Zealand
  • NZBN: 9429031911290

       

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