William Kent: Architect, Designer, Opportunist

A forthright look at the work of a flamboyant designer who, during the reign of George I, turned England’s philistine sense of style inside out. Kent found his true genius laying out beautiful gardens — perhaps England’s only original contribution to European design.

Literature & Fiction

Mowl, Timothy

History & Criticism

JONATHAN CAPE.

Horace Walpole, famous for his novel "The Castle of Otranto" and his gothick castle-villa, Strawberry Hill, has been oddly shielded by his previous admirers. The most famous of these was W.S. Lewis, a rich American scholar, who collected virtually all of Walpole's surviving letters and papers and edited them in forty-eight impressive volumes. He was however a conventional man of his times and could not bring himself to acknowledge Walpole's homosexuality and its implications. R.W. Ketton-Cremer, who wrote what was otherwise a very good biography of Walpole, was similarly evasive. Timothy Mowl's study of Horace Walpole is the first to give a complete and convincing picture of the whole man. It is the first to show that, despite his aristocratic connections (he was the youngest son of Sir Robert Walpole, Britain's first Prime Minister) Horace Walpole was a sexual and social outsider whose talents as a publicist were used to serve his own agenda. Also revealed for the first time is Walpole's passionate affair with the 9th Earl of Lincoln. The ending of that relationship, and Walpole's subsequent resentment of Lincoln's relatives, affected his judgment, friendships and emotions for the rest of his life. This book provides an honest and radical reassessment of one of the most influential men of taste of the eighteenth-century, and is reissued to coincide with a major Victoria and Albert Museum exhibition dedicated to Horace Walpole and Strawberry Hill. 'This is a lively, provocative and hugely entertaining book. Whatever one makes of Dr Mowl's interpretation of Walpole's career, it is always intelligently argued, and presented with a polemical vigour and sense of style which are worthy of his subject's own' - John Adamson, "Sunday Review". '...he is lively and convincing on the gradual accretions to Strawberry Hill, and often shrewd on the character of his subject ...' - Pat Rogers, "Times Literary Supplement". 'In general, Mowl writes delightfully, and there are witticisms that Horry (Horace Walpole) himself would relish' - Bevis Hillier, "The Spectator". 'In this vivid and entertaining biography, Horace Walpole is properly outed.' Duncan Sprott, "Gay Times". '...he presents the most credible picture of the man and his achievement to date' - Martin Postle, "Apollo". 'This wicked, enjoyable book should provoke wide debate' - David Watkin, "Evening Standard".

Horace Walpole: The Great Outsider

Faber and Faber

'That Prussian pedant', 'Herr Professor Doktor': these were two of the jibes John Betjeman levelled at Nikolaus Pevsner, who, it must be said, received them with great restraint. Betjeman and Pevsner were polar opposites, the one giving voice to an alluring threnody for the destruction of our historic landmarks, the other articulating the case for international modernism. Their different outlooks are most obviously manifested in the Shell County Guides, edited by Betjeman, and the magisterial Buildings of England series, which within the confines of impeccable scholarship, represents Pevsner's credo. The former is imbued with a most agreeable dilettantism that is strikingly successful in capturing ambience, the latter brilliantly and in compelling detail anatomizes individual buildings.   Betjeman and Pevsner personified two opposing sensibilities and in this most engaging book Timothy Mowl shows how the two rivals became, behind a polite façade, irreconcilable foes who fought for the supremacy of their alternative visions until the same fatal illness struck them down.  'This entertaining analysis of Betjeman's dislike of what he believed Pevsner stood for is a subtle and unique contribution to twentieth-century English social and cultural history. Mowl has written an absolutely gripping story, full of irony and surprise, about two men who were so similar yet so totally different.' David Watkin

Stylistic Cold Wars: Betjeman Versus Pevsner

Biographies & Memoirs

Historical

William Beckford had two lives: one real and sensational, the other an elegant forgery he invented in retirement after the young Disraeli mischievously sent him a homoerotic epic based loosely on Beckford's own career. Biographers have been bemused by Beckford's faked letters and dream encounters with celebrities, but his real life was far more significant: he is the pivotal Romantic between Horace Walpole and Byron. Beckford was reared in exotic isolation in a Palladian palace where he grew up obsessed with dark grottoes, towers and images of the living dead. Rushed into marriage by an apprehensive mother, he indulged his actual passions (both legal and paedophile) until a Tory administration staged a sex scandal that exiled him. In his absence his novel, Vathek was treacherously pirated. Returned to England, Beckford flung his wealth into the creation of Fonthill Abbey, which, by its shadowy vistas and glamorous camp furnishings, paved the way for the wildest excesses of Victorian taste.

William Beckford

Mowl, Tim

Faber&Faber

During the age that brought the great flowering of the English language in the work of Shakespeare, Jonson, and the King James version of the Bible there also emerged a truly English style of architecture and decoration that has had a romantic appeal ever since. So strong was this appeal to the Victorians that they were to christen it `Jacobethan' and incorporate it into numerous houses of their own period in England and America. From the accession of Elizabeth in 1558 to James I's death in 1625, a delayed Renaissance swept England, and pervaded the domestic architecture and interiors of the day. Far from taking on a purely Italianate style, however, a peculiarly English form emerged, which was not only to be expressed in the great houses, the typical castle-palace of the period, but also in the smaller houses of town and country. This illustrated book shows not only the magnificence of the architecture through specially commissioned photography of Elizabethan and Jacobean houses, but also plunders the great pattern books of the time to show the roots of the often wild elaboration of the period. In architecture and in furnishings, classical detail was constantly fused with a Tudor venacular, to create a style that has been enduringly popular up to the present day.

Elizabethan & Jacobean Style

Arts & Photography

Architecture

Phaidon Inc Ltd

From the accession of Elizabeth I in 1558 to the death of James I in 1625, a delayed renaissance swept England, pervading the domestic architecture and interiors of the day and signalling the emergence of a peculiarly English form of architecture. Timothy Mowl explores with erudition the social and cultural history of the time and the way that it is reflected in contemporary furnishings, interiors and architecture. This magnificently illustrated book, with specially commissioned photography, shows the splendour of the architecture of Elizabethan and Jacobean houses in a timelessly absorbing manner.

Elizabethan and Jacobean Style

Phaidon Press

Architecture Without Kings: The Rise of Puritan Classicism Under Cromwell

Earnshaw, Brian

Manchester Univ Pr

This illustrated book provides a complete assessment of the architecture of Cromwell's England. Key to the puritan minimalist classicism of the time was the work of Inigo Jones, and this book provides a controversial reassessment not only of Jones himself but of his apprentice, John Webb. It also places the work of Roger Pratt above that of Isaac de Cans and argues that he must be considered the true disciple of Inigo Jones. The individual buildings discussed include: Cromwell House, Highgate Hill; The Piazza, Covent Garden; The Queen's House, Greenwich; and the Pepsyian Library, Magdalen College, Cambridge.

Horace Walpole, wilful and effete son of Britain's first and most down-to-earth of Prime Ministers, made an unexpectedly powerful impression on his times, and his influence has lasted. Strawberry Hill, his frail castle-villa, became the resort of princes and inspired a century of Gothic revivalism. His novel, The Castle of Otranto, never yet out of print, engendered whole libraries of Gothic fantasy. When he returned to politics he plotted the removal of a government and astutely manoeuvred his inept friend Conway almost to 10 Downing Street. Denied Cabinet office by his reputation as a pervert, he took revenge in the seductive, tendentious memoirs that have since blackened the leading Whig dynasty in all later histories.Until now the image of Horace Walpole has been distorted. Earlier this century, Wilmarth Lewis, a rich American scholar, collected virtually all Walpole's surviving letters and papers and edited them in 48 impressive volumes. But Lewis was a conventional man of his times and could not bring himself to recognize Walpole's homosexuality and its implications. He missed, and encouraged visiting scholars to miss, the true motivation behind his hero's life.This is the first study of Horace Walpole to give a complete and convincing picture of the whole man. It is the first to show that, despite his aristocratic connections, Walpole was a sexual and social outsider whose talents as an intriguer and publicist were used to serve his own agenda. Also revealed for the first time is Walpole's passionate affair with the 9th Earl of Lincoln. The ending of the relationship, and Walpole's subsequent resentment of Lincoln's relatives, affected his judgement, friendships and emotions for the rest of his life.This book will initiate a radical revision of eighteenth-century politics, architecture and literature.

Arts & Literature

John Murray Pubs Ltd

John Betjeman and Nikolaus Pevsner were opposites. Both, however, had a profound influence on the way Britain looks today. This work charts their contemporaneous rise as style warriors. In Pevsner's case, it examines his transformation from a respected German art historian, specializing in Mannerism, to the determined exponent of international modernism, intent on the imposition of a functional townscape upon post-war Britain. In Betjeman's case, it explores his conversion from idealistic young journalist, acclaiming the dawn of the machine age, concrete, steel and all, to the great lyric poet, who, in mourning the destruction of our historic landmarks and towns, effectively launched the Heritage Industry. As Timothy Mowl reveals in this study, the two rivals became, behind a polite facade, irreconcilable foes who fought for the supremacy of their alternative visions until the same fatal illness struck them down.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Mowl, Timothy. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Mowl, Timothy

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Mowl, Timothy. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

William Kent: Architect, Designer, Opportunist

Horace Walpole: The Great Outsider

Stylistic Cold Wars: Betjeman Versus Pevsner

William Beckford

Elizabethan & Jacobean Style

Elizabethan and Jacobean Style

Architecture Without Kings: The Rise of Puritan Classicism Under Cromwell

Architecture Without Kings: The Rise of Puritan Classicism Under Cromwell

Horace Walpole: The Great Outsider

Stylistic Cold Wars: Betjeman Versus Pevsner