300 pp, 8vo (8 3/4" H), hard cover in dust jacket. ISBN 0091555906 B&w plates. "For more than 250 years Mayfair has been the best address in London - rivalled now by Belgravia but still a glamorous and desirable place in which to live and work. I n this century it has had a glittering image as the playground of high society, and Mayfair is still shorthand for a moneyed way of life, though these days the money comes mainly from expense accounts and Middle East oil wells. And the desirab l e p roperties in the glossy ads in 'Country Life' and 'Tatler' are more likely to be offices than private homes. From its raffish Restoration origins this has been an area which boasted an extraordinary mixture of residents, from members of Cha rl es II ' s court to Clive of India, Beau Brummell, Mrs Fitzherbert (who secretly married the Prince Regent in the drawing-room of a house in Park Street), through eminent Victorians like Disraeli and Florence Nightingale to plutocrats like Barne y B arn a to an d J.P. Morgan, and leaders of pre-war society like the Mountbattens and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. Until the late nineteenth century it was also a village of all the talents, a cross-section of society where aristocrats and artisans li ved back t o b ack a nd their neighbours included politicans, playwrights, poets and craftsmen. Finally, in this fascinating social history, Carol Kennedy looks hard at post-war Mayfair; at what happens on the real-life Monopoly board when the le ases fall in ." Slig ht darkening to top of textblock. Dust jacket has minor edge wrinkling. Very Good+/Very Good+

MAYFAIR LONDON SIR THOMAS GROSVENOR EDWARDIAN HIGH SOCIETY SOCIAL