Aristocrats: An Illustrated Companion Book

Alive with the details of upper-class life in the 1700s, and sparkling with extracts from the letters of Caroline, Emily, Louisa and Sarah Lennox and their offspring, Aristocrats: The Illustrated Companion to the Television Series takes the reader on a Grand Tour of their 18th-century experience. Stella Tillyard's completely new text (the series Aristocrats is based on her highly acclaimed book of the same name), breathes intelligence and accessibility. Divided into themed chapters: Beginnings and Marriages; Town Life; Country Life; Travel and Endings, Aristocrats is gorgeously illustrated with informatively captioned paintings, photos of artefacts and stills from the television series. Helpfully, the book kicks off with a Dramatis Personae section, which explains who everyone is, tells us how they relate to each other, what they were like and fits them snugly into their context like the elegant, idiosyncratic pieces of a lavish three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle. Throughout, Tillyard's affectionately vivid prose combines with the stunning illustrations to recreate the opulence in which the Lennox sisters lived, loved, married, took lovers, raised children, survived scandals, played at architecture and design, and lived high politics. A book which combines gossip, art and history to terrific effect. Buy it even if you've read Tillyard's original book. Actually--buy two copies. Keep one and give one to someone you love as a present. --Lisa GeeRead More