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Review
"A highly entertaining tale of decadence and debauchery."
--Tatler
Scriven...treads a fine line between elegy and disapproval. By pitching his tone right, and providing plenty of juicy details, he has produced a work of wide appeal. --Observer
A witty, gossipy and profoundly researched portrait of four particularly dysfunctional 20th century aristocrats. --The Sunday Times The Sunday Times
Salutary reading for these cash-strapped times. --Independent
Compelling...so riveting that it is hard to put down. --Scotsman
Wickedly entertaining. --Yorkshire Post
"Witty, gossipy and profoundly researched" --The Sunday Times
"Scriven...treads a fine line between elegy and disapproval. By pitching his tone right, and providing plenty of juicy details, he has produced a work of wide appeal." --Observer Observer
"Salutary reading for these cash-strapped times." --Independent
"Compelling...so riveting that it is hard to put down." -- Scotsman
"Wickedly entertaining."
--Yorkshire Post
'Scriven guides us through each catalogue of errors with relish and wit.' --Daily Telegraph
--Tatler
Scriven...treads a fine line between elegy and disapproval. By pitching his tone right, and providing plenty of juicy details, he has produced a work of wide appeal. --Observer
A witty, gossipy and profoundly researched portrait of four particularly dysfunctional 20th century aristocrats. --The Sunday Times The Sunday Times
Salutary reading for these cash-strapped times. --Independent
Compelling...so riveting that it is hard to put down. --Scotsman
Wickedly entertaining. --Yorkshire Post
"Witty, gossipy and profoundly researched" --The Sunday Times
"Scriven...treads a fine line between elegy and disapproval. By pitching his tone right, and providing plenty of juicy details, he has produced a work of wide appeal." --Observer Observer
"Salutary reading for these cash-strapped times." --Independent
"Compelling...so riveting that it is hard to put down." -- Scotsman
"Wickedly entertaining."
--Yorkshire Post
'Scriven guides us through each catalogue of errors with relish and wit.' --Daily Telegraph
Product Description
From stunning stately homes to the prisons of wartime Britain; from the House of Lords to Edwardian asylums; from the Ritz and the Dorchester to East End pubs, "Splendour and Squalor" tells the stories of four of Britain's most illustrious aristocratic dynasties and of the black sheep who brought them down. They kept monkeys in West End hotels, and rent-boys in Deauville and Kensington. They spiced up life in pre-war Britain by patronizing illegal gaming clubs and staging elaborate five-in-a-bed sex in stately homes. They used firearms with convincing disregard for their own and others' safety and drove their Rollses and Bentleys with apparently suicidal intent. They acquired yachts and helicopters as they shipped the family silver to California and disposed of Old Masters at auction. They married frequently and unsatisfactorily, humiliating their wives and always withholding from them dynastic secrets of schizophrenia and insanity. Lacking the energy and appetite to do so, they rarely developed their talents. Carpeting their lives with deceit, they sought consolation in ferocious expenditure, funding narcotic and alcohol-fueled blow-outs. They ignored the advice of sane relations, shrugged off trustees, and experimented with burglary, shop-lifting, vagrancy and fraud. Their primary, possibly sole, accomplishment was to drag down their families with them. They were the black sheep of aristocracy and this is their story.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
14 of 14 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
The characters in this book are all people who fall from elevated positions with an inevitability driven by their own wilfulness and addictions. As such the book treads a line between high Greek tragedy and salacious gossip. The fact that it does it so successfully and entertainingly is due to both to Scriven's beguiling familiarity with the codes, duties and diversions of the upper echelons of a society only recently disappeared, as well as the lively, always half-amused writing style which - in addition to documenting the greater excesses of the protagonists - lays open their more minor pecadillos on the end of a finely-turned phrase and sparkles with a vocabulary many of us would envy.
There are times when the behaviour of these people seems to be too incredible to believe. But speaking as one who knew (albeit briefly) one of these characters in their early life, I can vouch for at least some of the author's research: Appallingly correct!
There are times when the behaviour of these people seems to be too incredible to believe. But speaking as one who knew (albeit briefly) one of these characters in their early life, I can vouch for at least some of the author's research: Appallingly correct!
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format:Kindle Edition
Mr Boole's "review" is a travesty, not only because of its ludicrous misrepresentation of Splendour & Squalor, which is an outstanding book, but because of its absurd and defamatory comments about Marcus Scriven, who was a contemporary of mine both during basic training in the army and at Oxford. As has been mentioned above, he wasn't in the same college as Boris Johnson - who was two years below us - didn't know him, and so didn't spend years "sucking up to him". Mr Boole, whose review might well suggest to the uninitiated that he knew Scriven at Oxford, now admits that his original "review" wrongly alleged that Scriven got a Third in History. He is equally wrong to claim that Scriven envied those "better born than him", or indeed anyone (I speak as someone who has known him for 30 years).
As far as Mr Boole's review of Splendour & Squalor is concerned, Scriven does not present a single viewpoint of each of the primary characters but pays appropriate attention to their virtues as well as their vices, and goes to extraordinary lengths to unearth the origins of those vices, whether it's a disastrous arranged marriage or an appalling upbringing - such as John Bristol experienced at the hands of his father, Victor - as has been pointed out in comments above by Simon Pott, who was Bristol's agent, and by Ian Codrington, who was solicitor to Angus Montagu, 12th Duke of Manchester.
Perhaps Mr Boole should try his hand at writing fiction; he appears to have a talent for it.
As far as Mr Boole's review of Splendour & Squalor is concerned, Scriven does not present a single viewpoint of each of the primary characters but pays appropriate attention to their virtues as well as their vices, and goes to extraordinary lengths to unearth the origins of those vices, whether it's a disastrous arranged marriage or an appalling upbringing - such as John Bristol experienced at the hands of his father, Victor - as has been pointed out in comments above by Simon Pott, who was Bristol's agent, and by Ian Codrington, who was solicitor to Angus Montagu, 12th Duke of Manchester.
Perhaps Mr Boole should try his hand at writing fiction; he appears to have a talent for it.
54 of 58 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Marcus Scriven's "Splendour & Squalor" is a thoroughly researched and beautifully written work that I'd recommend thoroughly. Unlike some writers, the author has identified, tracked down and teased information from sources whose experiences had previously been private. Scriven has then woven this information into a fascinating and at times hilarious account. It would have been easy for him to have dwelt on the "fall from grace" of the four characters, to have allowed the reader moments of schadenfreude ... but these are rarer than I'd expected - and he presents plenty of background information that caused me to challenge the images I'd created of e.g. the Herveys, father and son. I love the author's concise prose, the interest he builds and holds, and the insights he reveals... culminating in a final gem: the thought provoking epilogue. Apparently this is Scriven's first book. I can't wait for more...
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Mesmerising storytelling
This is a fabulously offbeat social history. `The amphetamine worked quickly. Angus left First Class and moved towards the cockpit ... Read more
Published 4 months ago by James Sabine
Tragedy is ever compelling
This is a tremendous book. It has been comprehensively researched and is meticulous in laying out the slow train crashes of these 3 formerly great families, who each had lemming... Read more
Published 5 months ago by Charles Dupplin
Petty Gossip
One should always be suspicious of a spate of rave reviews whose authors happen never to have posted a review before, nor one since. Read more
Published 6 months ago by Patrick Boole
A tremendous romp
A remarkable insight into how some of the families that literally lorded it over us for half a millennium or more chucked it all away in a generation. Read more
Published 11 months ago by standardman
A beautifully written well researched insight into three fascinating...
Splendour and squalour gives a fascinating insight into the bizarre lives of these wild livers (no pun intended). Read more
Published 13 months ago by Mr. J. Birkin
Unreadable book
The book is about 4 20th century aristocrats: Edward FitzGerald of the Dutchy of Leinster, Victor and John Hervey, Marquesses of Bristol, and Angus Montagu of the Dutchy of... Read more
Published 13 months ago by J. N. W. Bos
Satisfyingly salacious yet sensitive
The 'Begger's Banquet' like book cover promises a feast of salacious, aristocratic excesses of Hogarthian if not Rolling Stones proportions - and the author does not fail to... Read more
Published 17 months ago by Patrick
small print
I didnt read this book,and I was looking forward to it,as its my sort of subject.My sight is not bad,but I found the print too small.this i could not battle with.
Published 18 months ago by Margaret J. Frewin
very weak
This was a complete disappointment. It was a typically soulless list of events that is common in most (but not all) history books. Read more
Published 18 months ago by W. R. Robinson
Splendour & Squalor
The alluring cover of Marcus Scriven's book 'Splendour & Squalor' presents a witty and louche interpretation of a 'conversation piece' in the Hogarthian style. Read more
Published 19 months ago by L Royden
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