- Hardcover: 256 pages
- Publisher: Methuen Publishing Ltd (9 Aug 1984)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0413549909
- ISBN-13: 978-0413549907
- Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 13 x 2.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 806,753 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
This volume brings together three books ("The Saracen's Head", "Drayneflete Revealed" and "The Littlehampton Bequest") in which the author chronicles - in words and drawings - the lives and fortunes of the Littlehampton family of Drayneflete.
--This text refers to the
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
If you like me love history and find it difficult to pass a country house, church or historic town without stopping for look, then let me introduce you to a little known gem of a book which takes a witty and gently satirical look at the world of the country house guide book and aristocratic family history. In short let me introduce to that delightful country town Draynflete. This perfect example of the English country town is one of the jewels of Sussex. Its prominent families, the Ffidgets, thew Tipples and the Courantsdairs, were recorded by some of the great artists of the day (we have a Lely, a Gainsborough, a Reynolds and many more).
In fact the whole thing is a marvellous feat of pastiche and imagination by the writer and illustrator Osbert Lancaster. The extraordinary comic gallery of characters which Lancaster has created will bring a smile to any reader. All the more so because of the acute historical knowledge which underpins the whole book. The pastiche is so effective because it is so close to reality.
There are three sections to the book. The Saracen's Head is a comic account of the escapades of young William de Littlehampton whilst on the Third Crusade. The second is a wonderful spoof local history of the fictional town of Draynflete. The final part of the book is a wittily illustrated guide to the Bequest to the nation of the Littlehampton family portraits. Here as in Draynflete revealed Lancaster is free to execute the wittiest of parodies of artists fron Cranach the Elder through to Hockney. These delightful illustrations and the brief pen portraits and potted histories of the amusingly grotesques from the fictional aristocratic family of Courantsdair are guaranteed to amuse all but the most pedantic of bores.
I genuinely believe these three little gems to be among the wittiest books I have read and I come back to them time and time again. So give yourtself an early birthday present and make the acquaintance of that sporting squire Sir Hercules Ffidget who lost the affection of his wife by kennelling twenbty or more hounds in the marital bedroom or that exquisite aesthete Casimir de Vere-Tipple who "for private reasons" had to reside abroad after 1895.
Format:Paperback
This is a single book combining three of Osbert Lancaster's prolific output of cartoons, serious and humorous books on architecture and social history in the UK.
They're books I first read in my early teens and I still dig into them from time to time.
You don't need to know much about any of the subjects - just lie back and enjoy the way he plays on and with names and places, while also seeing how - and why - some of our towns are architectural monstrosities.
Maybe you don't care much - you will by the time you've finished this one three-book volume. And even if you don't really care. you'll have enjoyed justifying your prejudices - enormously.
They're books I first read in my early teens and I still dig into them from time to time.
You don't need to know much about any of the subjects - just lie back and enjoy the way he plays on and with names and places, while also seeing how - and why - some of our towns are architectural monstrosities.
Maybe you don't care much - you will by the time you've finished this one three-book volume. And even if you don't really care. you'll have enjoyed justifying your prejudices - enormously.
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Little needs be said! Osbert Lancaster at his best - good old, well known,
historical background (if traditional rather than critically accurate) with that inimitable combination of wit, knowledge, sensitivity and verve ... actually, you cannot really say it. Superb, or something ...
historical background (if traditional rather than critically accurate) with that inimitable combination of wit, knowledge, sensitivity and verve ... actually, you cannot really say it. Superb, or something ...
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