- Hardcover: 288 pages
- Publisher: Chatto & Windus; illustrated edition edition (18 Oct 2001)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0701172797
- ISBN-13: 978-0701172794
- Product Dimensions: 23.6 x 15.5 x 3 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 303,413 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
18 Folgate Street: The Tale of a House in Spitalfields
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Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
The innocuous-sounding address of 18 Folgate Street is here the book of the tour of Dennis Severs' extraordinary recreation of a Georgian household in Spitalfields, a piece of theatrical still life, mesmerisingly conjured. Severs died at the end of 1999, but this alternative written version, with the sympathetic editing of Jenny Uglow, a gallery of photographs and an introduction by London's literary curator and, indeed, biographer, Peter Ackroyd, provides a unique posthumous flat-pack tour, time-capsuled for the future curious.
Severs, a more-English-than-thou Californian, bought the house in a derelict street just outside the Square Mile in 1979, and set upon installing himself and his lifelong acquisitions. Friends called it a "restoration comedy", but it was to become a historical drama, with Severs' declaration that "my canvas is your imagination". He installed the fictional Gervais/Jervis family, Huguenot silk weavers, from whose affairs Severs himself weaves his narrative magic. Beginning in the basement larder and kitchen, he takes the visitor-reader on a parade upwards, though the parlour, dining room, drawing room, bedroom, boudoir and attic of the house, summoning drama and narrative from the strategically arranged and decorated rooms, heavy with the air of recent occupation. At its best, it resembles a talking book, each room an episode linking to the next, and with Severs' constant evocation of duality, symmetry and dimension as he finds art in balance rather than chronological fidelity. Taste, however, can be a cruel, haranguing thing, something Severs shares when his singular, proportionate vision of the "Space Between" takes pleasure in reading too much into things. Does it work as well on the page? Inevitably, not fully; the effect is reductive, and contrary to the very principle of Severs' ambition. However, this quirky externalisation of this eccentric Anglophile's life, and its epoch-tripping celebration of etymology, social history, hearth drama and cultural and philosophical commentary, allied to tantalisingly brief snatches of autobiography, serves as the final will and testament of Dennis Severs, who rejuvenated the soul of a house with his own charged, imaginative kindling. Ultimately, the house's motto stands as the book's--"Aut Visum Aut Non": you either see it or you don't. --David Vincent
Review
"Every bit as brilliantly quirky and entertaining as its author used to be." -- "Independent on Sunday
"From the Trade Paperback edition.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
29 of 29 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Having been to 18 Folgate Street only a month ago, I can say that the book very much evokes the spirit of the house. The house is awesome on its own, but Severs' "voice" is what is missing. Since it was his private residence, only his own words can truly bring it to life, and the book does that with flair. That he began as a storyteller is evident in his sense of drama.
Sometimes the "space between" concept seems a bit overblown. However, the book explains very readably the fashions of the time, and how 18th-century homeowners viewed their homes (and how Dennis Severs perceived his). There is a good balance between the factual and the atmospheric, and the ambience is well captured by the photographs. 18 Folgate Street is truly a one-of-a-kind place, and even if you don't have the chance to visit the house, this book is a must-read. Turn out the lights, light a few candles and settle in for a good read. It's almost as good as being there.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is an atmospheric and evocative book. Why only 3 stars then? Because everything Severs was trying to do in this house exists, as he puts it, in "the spaces in between"; it is in the half-overheard, the unsaid, the glimpsed. Impossible, of course, to do this in a book; a hard object full of printed words. However, Severs has a jolly good go at it and the results are intriguing and enjoyable, even if they can't possibly replicate the actual experience of the house with its dim lighting, noises and smells. So if, in one sense, this book is a failure, (though I for one wouldn't go that far) it is a magnificent one.
For those who don't already know, Dennis Severs was an American who fell in love with England; specifically with the London of the 18th century. Long before it was trendy (he helped create the trend) he bought a semi-derelict house in Spitalfields - 18 Folgate Street, of course - and set about not an academic restoration, but a recreation of the feeling of the past.
He used whatever materials came to hand, few of them historically exact, and covered up the stageyness of it by restricting the lighting. He lived in the house while doing it (I remember reading a magazine article decades ago, when the process had hardly started)and scavenged for objects to furnish it with whatever money he had available. The end result wasn't a museum or a National Trust style house-open-to-the-public, but a work of art, a poem, a play. Visitors, in small groups, were taken round by Severs who encouraged them to let slip their intellectual faculties and suspend disbelief; to enter into this latter-day fairy tale. Every prop, every bit of scene-setting, the "noises off" carefully taped a replayed at the appropriate time; all was designed to help us step into "the space between".
In this book, Severs has done his best to recreate the experience of going round the house, while filling in some of the biographical and technical background of his achievment. He succeeds up to a point in getting us to understand what the experience of the house must be like, but in the end we are reading a clever text and he cannot, of course, duplicate the emotional and theatrical impact. In the very nature of things, Severs is best at using objects, sounds and smells to work his art, and though the book is well-written the effort to convey the ineffable sometimes becomes mannered, even a little precious. If this starts to irritate you, check yourself; the book is worth persevering with. Dozens of superb, moody photos do help us in this interesting exercise of the imagination.
The book will be useful to many, especially as the numbers who can go round the house with Severs' successors as curators are necessarily very limited. If you find his poetic and rather winsome manner irritating, you are probably one of the people who wouldn't "get" the house anyway. Artists, film-makers, writers and those interested in domestic history should probably all read it.
For those who don't already know, Dennis Severs was an American who fell in love with England; specifically with the London of the 18th century. Long before it was trendy (he helped create the trend) he bought a semi-derelict house in Spitalfields - 18 Folgate Street, of course - and set about not an academic restoration, but a recreation of the feeling of the past.
He used whatever materials came to hand, few of them historically exact, and covered up the stageyness of it by restricting the lighting. He lived in the house while doing it (I remember reading a magazine article decades ago, when the process had hardly started)and scavenged for objects to furnish it with whatever money he had available. The end result wasn't a museum or a National Trust style house-open-to-the-public, but a work of art, a poem, a play. Visitors, in small groups, were taken round by Severs who encouraged them to let slip their intellectual faculties and suspend disbelief; to enter into this latter-day fairy tale. Every prop, every bit of scene-setting, the "noises off" carefully taped a replayed at the appropriate time; all was designed to help us step into "the space between".
In this book, Severs has done his best to recreate the experience of going round the house, while filling in some of the biographical and technical background of his achievment. He succeeds up to a point in getting us to understand what the experience of the house must be like, but in the end we are reading a clever text and he cannot, of course, duplicate the emotional and theatrical impact. In the very nature of things, Severs is best at using objects, sounds and smells to work his art, and though the book is well-written the effort to convey the ineffable sometimes becomes mannered, even a little precious. If this starts to irritate you, check yourself; the book is worth persevering with. Dozens of superb, moody photos do help us in this interesting exercise of the imagination.
The book will be useful to many, especially as the numbers who can go round the house with Severs' successors as curators are necessarily very limited. If you find his poetic and rather winsome manner irritating, you are probably one of the people who wouldn't "get" the house anyway. Artists, film-makers, writers and those interested in domestic history should probably all read it.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
2 reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Amazing House, Pretentious Text
1 April 2010
Format:Hardcover
The book is structured in a way so that you find out how Dennis Severs came to own it, and you read the tour he offered. The conceit is that he created a family, the Gervais (later Jervis) family, and as you travel through the rooms, you gain the feeling that the occupants only recently vacated them. Candles are still burning, food is still on the plates.
The problem I had with the text itself is that Severs was so in love with the sound of his own voice that he continually takes you outside of the experience of 18 Folgate Street. He prattles on about the "in between" and "either you see it or you don't" and indicates that if someone says that they had a lovely time and isn't struck dumb by the awe-inspiring patter at the end of their tour, he knows that they didn't "get it."
This is a beautifully presented volume, full of glorious photos taken in natural light, so that you can get an idea of how the house looks as you pass through it, and what the intention was behind it. This is especially important for people who might not be able to visit in person, because it is like walking back in time. The prose, however, may set some eyes rolling - I know it did mine.
The problem I had with the text itself is that Severs was so in love with the sound of his own voice that he continually takes you outside of the experience of 18 Folgate Street. He prattles on about the "in between" and "either you see it or you don't" and indicates that if someone says that they had a lovely time and isn't struck dumb by the awe-inspiring patter at the end of their tour, he knows that they didn't "get it."
This is a beautifully presented volume, full of glorious photos taken in natural light, so that you can get an idea of how the house looks as you pass through it, and what the intention was behind it. This is especially important for people who might not be able to visit in person, because it is like walking back in time. The prose, however, may set some eyes rolling - I know it did mine.
An Original Voice
11 May 2012
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
It is true that the author of this book can be infuriating, abrasive, and cares little for the reader's self esteem, but do not be put off by the above reviewer's rather self-serving complaints. This book is worth reading, even if a small struggle is occasionally needed, for its piercing apercus of 17th and 18th Century history, and its enlightening outlook on the study of history in general. The writer was clearly not in the ranks of the "normal"(as were many renowned writers) but the book's otherness is one of the main reasons why it is rewarding to read.
Roger Dickinson
Roger Dickinson
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