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Jane Brown
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Lancelot 'Capability' Brown: The Omnipotent Magician, 1716-1783 Paperback – International Edition, April 9, 2012

by Jane Brown (Author)
3.9 out of 5 stars 27 ratings
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Lancelot Brown changed the face of eighteenth-century England, designing country estates and mansions, moving hills and making flowing lakes and serpentine rivers, a magical world of green. This English landscape style spread across Europe and the world. At home, it proved so pleasing that Brown's influence spread into the lowland landscape at large, and into landscape painting. He stands behind our vision, and fantasy, of rural England. In this vivid, lively biography, based on detailed research, Jane Brown paints an unforgettable picture of the man, his work, his happy domestic life, and his crowded world. She follows the life of the jovial yet elusive Mr Brown, from his childhood and apprenticeship in rural Northumberland, through his formative years at Stowe, the most famous garden of the day. His innovative ideas, and his affable and generous nature, led to a meteoric rise to a Royal Appointment in 1764 and his clients and friends ranged from statesmen like the elder Pitt to artists and actors like David Garrick. Riding constantly across England, Brown never ceased working until he collapsed and died in February 1783 after visiting one of his oldest clients. He was a practical man but also a visionary, always willing to try something new. As this delightful, and beautifully illustrated biography shows, Brown filled England with enchantment - follies, cascades, lakes, bridges, ornaments, monuments, meadows and woods - creating views that still delight us today.
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  1. Print length
    400 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Pimlico
  4. Publication date
    April 9, 2012
  5. Dimensions
    6.06 x 1.12 x 9.19 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    1845951794
  7. ISBN-13
    978-1845951795
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Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Pimlico
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ April 9, 2012
  • Edition ‏ : ‎ UK ed.
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 400 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1845951794
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1845951795
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.22 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.06 x 1.12 x 9.19 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    3.9 out of 5 stars 27 ratings

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Jane Brown

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3.9 out of 5 stars
27 global ratings

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Top reviews from the United States

  • K. Allen
    5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Exploration
    Reviewed in the United States on April 21, 2017
    Verified Purchase
    Everything Brown masterfully presented without tedium or any lack of scholarship. I highly recommend it.
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  • Senga
    4.0 out of 5 stars perfect
    Reviewed in the United States on March 27, 2012
    Verified Purchase
    This lovely book was the perfect gift for recent giving to a gardening friend. I was able to get it at Amazon before it is being offered in US bookstores.
    One person found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

  • GOLF GAL
    5.0 out of 5 stars Seems very good value for money
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 1, 2016
    Verified Purchase
    Purchased as a raffle prize.
    Seems very good value for money.
    Have not read it myself.
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  • Nicholas Casley
    4.0 out of 5 stars The Man Who Manufactured Claudian England
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 7, 2017
    Verified Purchase
    I bought this book in the National Trust shop at Petworth House during a holiday in Sussex a few years ago, because I was intrigued by the man behind what became known to those on the continent and in the United States as 'the English-style Garden'. There are thirteen chapters, twenty-three plates, forty-three figures, a family tree, and a map.

    The title of Jane Brown's (no relation) book comes from the satirical poet and writer William Cowper, and describes Brown's power over the landscape and its aristocratic landlords to create lakes, move hills, and fashion Claudian scenes -

    "Lo! He comes, The omnipotent magician, Brown appears. ... He speaks. The lake in front becomes a lawn, Woods vanish, hills subside, and valleys rise, And streams, as if created for his use, Pursue the track of his directing wand." (William Cowper)

    Wherever you go in England you are close to an estate where Lancelot 'Capability' Brown (1716-1783) actually worked, or where his imitators copied his form of landscape gardening, what Horace Walpole described as the regaining of many a paradise.

    You can even say that Brown's style survives very well today in this country, as seen in the moulding of landscapes that surround modern reservoirs, that conjure the strips of new motorways, and which transforms old mining dumps and slagheaps. Capability's work has become quintessentially English as much as hedgerows and thatched cottages. The author points out that today we are used to large reservoirs but that eighteenth-century England was devoid of large lakes and so Brown's work was seen as quite revolutionary for its time.

    The author remarks in her biography that " 'Landscape' is not a word that Lancelot uses, though he is soon assailed by poets and painters who do: interestingly, it is pride in the effects produced by his work that inspired patrons to commission paintings of the English landscape,as opposed to the Italian." What I find amazing is that Brown's reputation, even his very existence as a major influence in English landscapes was only resurrected just after the Second World War in a book by Dorothy Stroud, so low had recognition of his services become.

    I am also amazed that Brown's nickname of 'Capability' was never used in his lifetime, although there are hints that his son was known as 'Capey' whilst at Eton - "thus revealing that a clique of Lancelot's clients called him this - but between themselves and never to his face." (Also, the agricultural writer Arthur Young used the word 'capability' in italics in his 1770 book of his your of northern England.)

    The book is written in a very engaging way, its author more or less informing you of the success or otherwise of her researches as she goes along through its thirteen chronological chapters. She has the occasional literary flourish too, such as: "Water, given space, clearly enjoys itself, fresh river water tumbling in spate, ousted by the flood from its accustomed bed and running wildly like a naughty child, careering across fields, making bubbly, translucent cascades where it falls into a rut, and then curling and dancing its way by the shortest route back to the mother river."

    (This focus on Brown's ways with water can bolster the case of Capability's detractors who see him as nothing more than a rural drainage engineer. Certainly, my ex Brian, himself a gardener, despised Brown's work. But his lament was for the loss of so many formal gardens that once stood adjacent to the great houses and which were swept away in order for the countryside to come right up to the door of the stately home.)

    However, the author's literary flourishes are few and far between: despite her engaging style, there are also pages of dry biography; details of who got paid, how much and by whom; and uninspiring lists of works done at various properties - and the list of famous patrons is so long (from the highest of aristocrats to personal friends such as David Garrick) that, rather than adding to the excitement these instead tend to dull the tale to be told. But there are always surprises in the text to maintain interest in the narrative, and Jane Brown saves the most surprising - that Lancelot had a child out of wedlock and maintained her - till almost the very end.

    She ends the book looking at how Capability was succeeded and assessed by those who followed. The Victorians destroyed or redesigned his forms, just at times when many woodlands scenes were coming to the fruition that Capability envisioned. But many of his designs survived (the collapse of many aristocratic estates in the twentieth century and their rescue by public bodies helped), so that when we now visit Petworth House, or Croome Court or Charlecote Park, or a myriad of other places dotted all over the country, we can see the effects that Brown intended and marvel at the fact that the cows grazing on the water-meadows down in the valley - what appears so beautiful and so natural - was in fact created to look as much by a man with vision and his team of contractors over two hundred years ago.
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  • BeeJay
    5.0 out of 5 stars Lancelot Brown
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 2, 2013
    Verified Purchase
    Explains so much more about Brown - his drive and loyalties - than any other of the many books I have on this influential man.
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  • Neil
    3.0 out of 5 stars Merely a procession of his life
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 15, 2020
    Verified Purchase
    It was informative and detailed. However, until the last chapter there was no real analysis of what Brown did such as development of his style, technical application if his ideas or frequency of a particular object. It was a procession of his travels. This could have been dealt with more briefly.
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  • Joe S
    2.0 out of 5 stars Repetitive and dull
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 28, 2021
    Verified Purchase
    I am from Wiltshire so have always been aware of Brown and have visited many of his gardens, sort of by accident, so felt it would be interesting to understand more about the man and also specifically the story of the Wiltshire landscapes he created. After I'd read about Longleat quite early on, it became very repetitive and boring, the same format for every landscape he was involved in - a sub-heading listing the names of 2 or 3 houses and then an explanation on who owned the land, how much Brown was paid, some of the features he added. This was the same all throughout the book and I really struggled to get up the motivation to finish it. I didnt get a feel of who Lancelot Brown was, nor did I learn much about his life, but perhaps that isn't the author's fault; possibly Brown's personal life wasn't particularly exciting or we perhaps don't have many sources to draw from.

    If you want to know about a specific project of Brown's I would advise looking it up and if you're looking for a biography of the man, or simply a good read, I'd look elsewhere. Therefore I cannot recommend this.
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