The English House: The Story of a Nation at Home, by Clive Aslet
Earlier this year a brave publisher republished in two volumes and nearly 800 pages the classic book on English domestic architecture, The English House, by Hermann Muthesius. It had first appeared in German as Das Englische Haus in 1904. Clive Aslet’s new book takes the same useful title for his much briefer account of some 21 dwellings that encapsulate for him the enduring qualities of the English home.
Both Aslet in the 21st century and Muthesius in the 20th share the same strong sentiments about houses and the English. They both are convinced that domestic comfort and style has been perfected in England and that the intensity of our love of home and the homely virtues is unique in the world. Aslet trails behind him his years as editor of Country Life, where he spent his time often writing about houses in that journal which has, since its birth, celebrated houses for its readers and enhanced the profits of estate agents.
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