- Hardcover: 400 pages
- Publisher: Doubleday; 1st Edition, First impression. edition (2 Jun 2008)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0385607725
- ISBN-13: 978-0385607728
- Product Dimensions: 22.8 x 15 x 4.2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
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- #28 in Books > History > Reference > Genealogy > Family History
Madresfield
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More About the Author
Product Description
Selina Hastings, Daily Mail
Scholarly, evocative and beautifully written...a thrillingly vivid historical portrait...a little masterpiece, as rich and rare as the house itself.
Nicholas Shakespeare, Telegraph
Fascinating history...Mulvagh is a tactful tour-guide...she sets the reader at ease...lays out for the first time the full heartbreaking background.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
16 of 16 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I bought this book in the hope it might be like Catherine Bailey's well-written and enthralling Black Diamonds but was very disappointed. It starts out promisingly enough with the first two chapters devoted to Evelyn Waugh's association with the Lygon family, who inspired Brideshead Revisited. Then the author returns to the Anglo-Saxon origins of Madresfield and it is here the tedium begins. Endless recitation of dull lifeless facts about the Lygons and even those ancestors whose lives were obviously full and interesting such as Fernando the corsair and Richard the seventeenth century botanist who went to Barbados and wrote about it fail to come alive under the author's pen. There are several chapters devoted to Puesyism and politics - dry subjects at the best of times but so boring I ended up skipping them and going to the final chapters dealing with the great scandal of Lord Beauchamp's homosexuality and details of what happened to the Lygons' after Brideshead.
Anybody hoping for signs of this book being "one of the best recent monographs on an English family and their country house.." as the blurb on the jacket proclaims will be disappointed. Almost nothing is made of the architecture or the interior of Madresfield apart from some glorious colour photos of some of the rooms and in using objects found in the house as chapter headings as in "The breviary", " the scrap of paper" and so on.
The writing is quite fawning in style, in that no critical word ever escapes the author's pen. Nor is there any evidence of any independent research being done. I am left with the impression that Jane Mulvagh was so overwhelmed at the privelege of being admitted to this most private of houses and its muniments that she took the greatest care not to offend the present members of the family at Madresfield. The result is a very dull book. Surely the Brideshead generation was not the only scandal in nine centuries?
Anybody hoping for signs of this book being "one of the best recent monographs on an English family and their country house.." as the blurb on the jacket proclaims will be disappointed. Almost nothing is made of the architecture or the interior of Madresfield apart from some glorious colour photos of some of the rooms and in using objects found in the house as chapter headings as in "The breviary", " the scrap of paper" and so on.
The writing is quite fawning in style, in that no critical word ever escapes the author's pen. Nor is there any evidence of any independent research being done. I am left with the impression that Jane Mulvagh was so overwhelmed at the privelege of being admitted to this most private of houses and its muniments that she took the greatest care not to offend the present members of the family at Madresfield. The result is a very dull book. Surely the Brideshead generation was not the only scandal in nine centuries?
56 of 61 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Jane Mulvagh's book should be called The Lygons to be more accurate. She offers only tantalising glimpses into the house itself, using suspiciously round dimensions to describe the rooms, an implausibly high drawing room ceiling and throws away a comment about 60 bedrooms in her descriptions. If you are looking for a history of Madresfield you'd be better to read 'The Last Country Houses' or the Country Life articles, the latter of which don't make a mention in her bibliography. Her links from the brief descriptions of the house to the various family members are facile and 2 dimensional.
However as a history of the Lygon's the book is very good. It makes fascinating reading, particularly on the 20th century Lygons and offers glimpses to a very different way of life that was broken apart by scandal. The Brideshead Revisited inspiration seem undeniable and offers a realistic basis to a 20th century classic.
All in all a good book, but misleadingly titled.
However as a history of the Lygon's the book is very good. It makes fascinating reading, particularly on the 20th century Lygons and offers glimpses to a very different way of life that was broken apart by scandal. The Brideshead Revisited inspiration seem undeniable and offers a realistic basis to a 20th century classic.
All in all a good book, but misleadingly titled.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
i found this book a very interesting overview of the family tree of one family the Lygon/Beauchamp family which unfolded using the history of the family home Madresfield. The writer told the story like a tour of the house as a tour guide would and so intertwined the rooms build over different periods and the story of the people who lived there.
lots of great colour photos even in the paperback as well as additional black and white photos within the text.
the history of the family was also the history of England royalty, court cases, architecture and painting poetry and music.
it was between a textbook and a novel and there were parts where it flowed along quickly and some i found a bit heavy going.
The family was the basis for the novel Brideshead re visted by Evelyn Waugh who was a close friend of the family in the 1930s.I have never read that novel but i reckon I will now.
lots of great colour photos even in the paperback as well as additional black and white photos within the text.
the history of the family was also the history of England royalty, court cases, architecture and painting poetry and music.
it was between a textbook and a novel and there were parts where it flowed along quickly and some i found a bit heavy going.
The family was the basis for the novel Brideshead re visted by Evelyn Waugh who was a close friend of the family in the 1930s.I have never read that novel but i reckon I will now.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
A piece of England
I live in the Cotswolds and this book is about somewhere I had never heard of. The setting for the original Brideshead Revisited, it is a fascinating history of a receding social... Read more
Published on 17 Nov 2009 by Mr. Paul Jones
defective copy?
in this new paperback edition the centre tranche of colour plates came away from the binding almost at first opening, bringing to mind that old truism..'buy cheap, buy twice'
Published on 28 Oct 2009 by Michael Pharey
Madresfield
A fascinating record of a family; particularly interesting to me as my great grandmother was a Lygon
Published on 10 Sep 2009 by Mrs. Gm Jazayeri
A well thought-out approach to a family history
Full credit for the way this book is laid out, taking a room or a feature and then relating it to a stage in the history of the Lygon family. Read more
Published on 27 Oct 2008 by Mondoro
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