David Pearce (1)

I read this book after I read "Private Palaces" by Christopher Simon Sykes, and the two books are very similar. In terms of auxiliary material, "Private Palaces" included a very useful map, while "Great Houses of London" had a glossary--I wish both books had had both maps and glossaries. Most of the words of course can now easily be looked up online, so the glossary is perhaps not now as useful as the map. The writers do definitely use a specialist's vocabulary, which is to be expected, and show more it's fun to learn the names for features of our built environment. The books are best when they include specific photographs of the exteriors or interiors about which the authors are writing. These are dense books, with the authors covering a lot of ground in a short space. It can be difficult to keep track of all the names, especially since the names change when the house owners are elevated to the peerage, or to a new title. Compounding that difficulty is the tendency for the houses' names to change when they had new occupants. show less

Technical Library - shelved at: D11

shelved in: Technical Library - at: D11

England. London