|
More than 5000 entries on the history, culture and life of Britain (published in 1993 by Macmillan, now out of print)
|
Burke's Peerage
|
|
and Burke's Landed Gentry Two of the best-known works of British genealogy. John Burke (1787–1848) published his first small pocket-sized edition of Burke's Peerage in 1826. With the 19C passion for anything medieval, this highly romanticized account of the origin of the country's oldest families was rapidly expanded into a fat quarto volume published annually (with the regular addition of their lordships' latest offspring). Burke's son and grandsons ran the business until 1926. Of several other similar titles, the Landed Gentry was the most successful.
|
|
|
|
Every glamorous anecdote about a family's origins was included in these works, enabling Oscar Wilde to describe Burke's Peerage as 'the best thing the English have done in fiction'. In the mid-20C both the Peerage and Landed Gentry were re-edited on a more scholarly basis, becoming reliable works of reference. But Burke's Peerage, Baronetage and Knightage (to give it its full title) has not been published since 1970.
|
|
|
|