The English Gentleman (Hardcover, New edition)

Originally written for Debrett's Peerage and now something of a classic, Douglas Sutherland's guide to that endangered species, the English Gentleman, was originally written as an antidote to all the endless, dull little books on manners and etiquette: the kind read by those who long to be recognised as part of the real gentry by the way they use their finger-bowl or address an Archbishop. Both genuinely informative and yet very funny in its self-deprecating tone, The English Gentleman offers a window to the parvenu on the rather perverse world of the genuine article. It describes his habits: where he might live, what he might wear, his school, his clubs, his hobbies and sports, his family and relationships, his behaviour when abroad, his mode of speech and the acceptable way to behave in almost any given situation (invariably the very opposite of what the outsider might think). Not to mention advice on the correct attitude to have toward money (it is vulgar), sex (it is vulgar) and business (it is vulgar unless, of course, it is run at a heavy loss). It all adds up to an unmissable initiation into the eccentric social history of the stiff upper lip. A hilarious and insightful look at the real life counterparts to the sort of squires found in the fiction of Nancy Mitford, PG Wodehouse and Compton Mackenzie. Proving that truth is often stranger than fiction.