The Long Weekend
Life in the English Country House, 1918-1939
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Narrated by:
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Steven Crossley
About this listen
As World War I drew to a close, change reverberated through the halls of England's country homes. As the sun set slowly on the British Empire, the shadows lengthened on the lawns of a thousand stately homes. In The Long Weekend, historian Adrian Tinniswood introduces us to the tumultuous, scandalous, and glamorous history of English country houses during the years between world wars. As estate taxes and other challenges forced many of these venerable houses onto the market, new sectors of British and American society were seduced by the dream of owning a home in the English countryside. Drawing on thousands of memoirs, letters, and diaries as well as the eyewitness testimonies of belted earls and bibulous butlers, Tinniswood brings the stately homes of England to life as never before, opening the door to a world by turns opulent and ordinary, noble and vicious, and forever wrapped in myth. Through the glitz of estate parties, the social tensions between old money and new, the hunting parties, illicit trysts, and grand feasts, Tinniswood offers a glimpse behind the veil of these great estates - and reveals a reality much more riveting than the dream.
©2016 Adrian Tinniswood (P)2016 TantorListeners also enjoyed...
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Deborah Mitford, Duchess of Devonshire, is the youngest of the famously witty brood that includes the writers Jessica and Nancy, who wrote when Deborah was born, "How disgusting of the poor darling to go and be a girl." Deborah's effervescent memoir chronicles her remarkable life, from an eccentric but happy childhood in the Oxfordshire countryside, to tea with Adolf Hitler and her controversially political sister Unity in 1937, to her marriage to the second son of the Duke of Devonshire.
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The last of the Mitford Sisters
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The Housekeeper's Tale
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The Housekeeper's Tale reveals the personal sacrifices, bitter disputes and driving ambition that shaped these women's careers. Using secret diaries, unpublished letters, and the neglected service archives of our stately homes, Tessa Boase tells the extraordinary stories of five working women who ran some of Britain's most prominent households.
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Utterly intriguing
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By: Tessa Boase
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Lady Almina and the Real Downton Abbey
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Lady Almina and the Real Downton Abbey tells the story behind Highclere Castle, the real-life inspiration and setting for Julian Fellowes's Emmy Award-winning PBS series, and the life of one of its most famous inhabitants: Lady Almina, the fifth Countess of Carnarvon. Drawing on a rich store of materials from the archives of Highclere Castle, including diaries, letters, and photographs, the current Lady Carnarvon has written a transporting story of this fabled home on the brink of war.
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the lowdown on Downton times
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Empty Mansions
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When Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Bill Dedman noticed in 2009 a grand home for sale, unoccupied for nearly 60 years, he stumbled through a surprising portal into American history. Empty Mansions is a rich mystery of wealth and loss, connecting the Gilded Age opulence of the 19th century with a 21st-century battle over a $300 million inheritance. At its heart is a reclusive heiress named Huguette Clark, a woman so secretive that, at the time of her death at age 104, no new photograph of her had been seen in decades.
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Fascinating, But Know This...
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By: Bill Dedman, and others
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Behind the Throne
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Story
In Behind the Throne, historian Adrian Tinniswood uncovers the reality of five centuries of life at the English court, taking the listener on a remarkable journey from one Queen Elizabeth to another and exploring life as it was lived by clerks and courtiers and clowns and crowned heads: the power struggles and petty rivalries, the tension between duty and desire, the practicalities of cooking dinner for thousands and of ensuring the king always won when he played a game of tennis.
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Very Worthwhile
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The President's House
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As Margaret Truman knows from firsthand experience, living in the White House can be exhilarating and maddening, alarming and exhausting, but it is certainly never dull. Part private residence, part goldfish bowl, and part national shrine, the White House is both the most important address in America and the most intensely scrutinized.
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Awesome History!
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By: Margaret Truman
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Bunny Mellon
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A new biography of Bunny Mellon, the style icon and American aristocrat who designed the White House Rose Garden for her friend JFK and served as a living witness to 20th century American history, operating in the high-level arenas of politics, diplomacy, art, and fashion.
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Well written bio.
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Black Diamonds
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When the sixth Earl Fitzwilliam died in 1902, he left behind the second largest estate in 20th-century England, valued at more than three billion dollars in today's money - a lifeline to the tens of thousands of people who worked either in the family's coal mines or on their expansive estate. The earl also left behind four sons, and the family line seemed assured. But was it?
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Could use a good editor...
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By: Catherine Bailey
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The Mistresses of Cliveden
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Overlooking the Thames, the Cliveden mansion is flanked by two wings and surrounded by lavish gardens. Throughout its storied history, Cliveden has been a setting for misbehavior, intrigue, and passion - from its salacious, deadly beginnings in the 17th century to the 1960s Profumo affair, the sex scandal that toppled the British government. Now, in this immersive chronicle, the manor's current mistress, Natalie Livingstone, opens the doors to this prominent house and lets the walls do the talking.
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disappointed
- By Galina M. on 11-14-16
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The Glitter and the Gold
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Consuelo Vanderbilt was young, beautiful and the heir to a vast family fortune. She was also deeply in love with an American suitor when her mother chose instead for her to fulfill her social ambitions and marry an English Duke. Leaving her life in America, she came to England as the Duchess of Marlborough in 1895 and took up residence in her new home: Blenheim Palace. The ninth Duchess gives unique first-hand insight into life at the very pinnacle of English society in the Edwardian era.
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Facinating Story- Terrible reading
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Royal Sisters
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In Royal Sisters, Anne Edwards, author of the best-selling Vivien Leigh: A Biography and Matriarch: Queen Mary and the House of Windsor, has written the first dual biography of Elizabeth, the princess who was to become Queen, and her younger sister, Margaret, who was to be her subject. From birth to maturity, they were the stuff of which dreams are made.
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Where's The Rest?
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Those Wild Wyndhams
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They were confidantes to British prime ministers, poets, writers, and artists, their lives entwined with the most celebrated and scandalous figures of the day, from Oscar Wilde to Henry James. They were the lovers of great men - or men of great prominence... They lived in a world of luxurious excess, a world of splendor at 44 Belgrave Square and later at the even more vast Clouds, the exquisite Wiltshire house on 4,000 acres, the "house of the age", designed in 1876 by the visionary architect Philip Webb - the model for Henry James' The Spoils of Poynton.
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SLOW START BUT STICK WITH THIS ONE
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By: Claudia Renton
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What listeners say about The Long Weekend
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- K. Holm
- 09-09-17
primarily a book of architecture
A very misleading title as very little of county life and tradition is described. Disappointing.
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3 people found this helpful
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- movielover
- 10-09-24
Fascinating!
This was a fascinating look into the daily life of various country houses. A good read before you visit these National Heritage sites.
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- D. Ollero
- 11-08-21
Didn’t like it at first
I didn’t like the beginning of this, and I wanted to return it, but I couldn’t. I made myself start to listen and by the end I found that I enjoyed it very much.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Eileen
- 08-06-17
Not What I Thought I Was
The first chapter delivers on the promise of an excellent idea- and then the book wanders off into a plodding list of lost properties. Informational if you can sit through it, otherwise an excellent sleep aid
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6 people found this helpful
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- Shawn Humphrey
- 09-19-18
Informational but a little dry at times
This snapshot of English country life, at times, demonstrates the wit and scandal fans of Gosford Park and Downton Abbey may expect. But at times it runs dry as a recitation of several example great houses emphasizing a point. When the book focuses on a single great estate or family it's at its strongest.
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6 people found this helpful
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- Robert
- 11-16-19
Not about weekends
As other reviewers have stated, it is not about long weekends, but it is more about architecture and the selling off of country houses. Bot what it is advertised to be.
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3 people found this helpful