Lives of Houses

Notable writersΓÇöincluding UK poet laureate Simon Armitage, Julian Barnes, Margaret MacMillan, and Jenny UglowΓÇöcelebrate our fascination with the houses of famous literary figures, artists, composers, and politicians of the past
What can a house tell us about the person who lives there? Do we shape the buildings we live in, or are we formed by the places we call home? And why are we especially fascinated by the houses of the famous and often long-dead? In Lives of Houses, notable biographers, historians, critics, and poets explores these questions and more through fascinating essays on the houses of great writers, artists, composers, and politicians of the past.
Editors Kate Kennedy and Hermione Lee are joined by wide-ranging contributors, including Simon Armitage, Julian Barnes, David Cannadine, Roy Foster, Alexandra Harris, Daisy Hay, Margaret MacMillan, Alexander Masters, and Jenny Uglow. We encounter W. H. Auden, living in joyful squalor in New York''s St. Mark''s Place, and W. B. Yeats in his flood-prone tower in the windswept West of Ireland. We meet Benjamin Disraeli, struggling to keep up appearances, and track the lost houses of Virginia Woolf and Elizabeth Bowen. We visit Benjamin Britten in Aldeburgh, England, and Jean Sibelius at Ainola, Finland. But Lives of Houses also considers those who are unhoused, unwilling or unable to establish a homeΓÇöfrom the bewildered poet John Clare wandering the byways of England to the exiled Zimbabwean writer Dambudzo Marechera living on the streets of London.
With more than forty illustrations, Lives of Houses illuminates what houses mean to us and how we use them to connect to and think about the past. The result is a fresh and engaging look at house and home.
Featuring Alexandra Harris on moving house ΓùÅ Susan Walker on Morocco''s ancient Roman House of Venus ΓùÅ Hermione Lee on biographical quests for writersΓÇÖ houses ΓùÅ Margaret MacMillan on her mother''s Toronto house ΓùÅ a poem by Maura Dooley, "Visiting Orchard House, Concord, Massachusetts"ΓÇöthe house in which Louisa May Alcott wrote and set her novel Little Women ΓùÅ Felicity James on William and Dorothy Wordsworth''s Dove Cottage ΓùÅ Robert Douglas-Fairhurst at home with Tennyson ΓùÅ David Cannadine on Winston Churchill''s dream house, Chartwell ΓùÅ Jenny Uglow on Edward Lear at San Remo''s Villa Emily ΓùÅ Lucy Walker on Benjamin Britten at Aldeburgh, England ΓùÅ Seamus Perry on W. H. Auden at 77 St. Mark''s Place, New York City ΓùÅ Rebecca Bullard on Samuel Johnson''s houses ΓùÅ a poem by Simon Armitage, "The Manor" ΓùÅ Daisy Hay at home with the Disraelis ΓùÅ Laura Marcus on H. G. Wells at Uppark ΓùÅ Alexander Masters on the fear of houses ΓùÅ Elleke Boehmer on sites associated with Zimbabwean writer Dambudzo Marechera ΓùÅ Kate Kennedy on the mental asylums where World War I poet Ivor Gurney spent the last years of his life ΓùÅ a poem by Bernard O''Donoghue, "Safe Houses" ΓùÅ Roy Foster on W. B. Yeats and Thoor Ballylee ΓùÅ Sandra Mayer on W. H. Auden''s Austrian home ΓùÅ Gillian Darley on John Soane and the autobiography of houses ΓùÅ Julian Barnes on Jean Sibelius and Ainola