'A whirling, waltzing panorama through the last carefree age of British nobility’ New StatesmanIn the decades before the First World War, the owners of the nation’s stately homes revelled in a golden age of glory and glamour.This was a time when the ancestral seats of ancient nobility stood side by side with the fabulous palaces of Jewish bankers and Indian princes, when dukes and duchesses mixed with self-made millionaires and society hostesses who had learned to dance in the chorus line. Adrian Tinniswood opens the doors to the country house during this glittering golden age, when – for the privileged few – life in the country house was the best life of all. ‘Scintillating and brilliant, from a master of the subject’ Gareth Russell‘Shot through with Tinniswood’s signature sardonic wit and delicious one-liners...The range and scop of his book is breathtaking’ Country Life