Customer Reviews

Burke's Peerage and Baronetage

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This latest edition of the famous bible of the British aristocracy takes a robust attitude to such touchy subjects as money, illegitimacy and snobbery.

Those requiring remotely useful information on the who, what and where of British society will be obliged to update their now dog-eared 1970s vintage editions - this new volume, while bemoaning the vanishing English Country House, has scores of entries for the would-bes, might-bes and has-beens of showbusiness.

No expense has been spared in researching the sons, daughters, lovers and sisters-of-cousins of the rich, the titled and the famous.

For some entries, the claim to fame is merely to have been born of the right seed (with, or without, benefit of clergy). Elsewhere, a meritocratic approach is evident, with the likes of Jamie Lee Curtis and some hundreds of other screen sirens, British and American, finding their way in. However, a Bourke's tradition is maddeningly maintained in appearing to favour some achievers over others, with little apparent regard for talent, longevity or importance. If nothing else, this gives us all a stick with which to beat the book, and adds to the general sense of the surreal and the dotty which characterises this distinctly British, and quite obviously insane work. Read it with relish.

A superb party game involves reading part of an entry, and challenging your guests as to whether the person concerned entered the Peerage on merit or thanks to an accident of birth. Skilled players edit their extracts to gull the susceptible. Enjoy.

Few books have caused such anxiety as this one. It brands some people as socially unworthy (basically, if you're not in it!), and raises others to great worth. If you read VANITY FAIR (the novel, not the magazine) by William Makepeace Thackery, you'll see the characters rush home after a party to consult BURKE'S PEERAGE to see if those they've just met are of proper lineage. Arianna Huffington (who is Greek) recently said that, when she got to America, she was relieved she could make social progress there. She went there from London, where she said, "You had to be in BURKE'S PEERAGE to make it socially." Imagine a book having such social influence in both the 19th and 20th Centuries!!