Soho for East Anglia

Geoffrey Bles, 1963-01-01. Hardcover. Very Good/Very Good. Geoffrey Bles [Published date: 1963]. Hard cover, 223 pp. First Edition. Very good in very good dust jacket. Burnt orange textured paper over boards with black lettering on spine. Light bumping and scuffing to edges of covers. Binding tight. Light age spotting to top edge of text block. Pages are lightly aged but otherwise unmarked. Dust jacket has several 1/2" or less nicks and tears and light creasing along the edges. Light overall scuffing, aging and soiling to jacket as well. NOT price clipped. Now in an archival-quality (removable) Brodart Cover. NOT Ex-library. NO remainder marks. Black and white illustrations by Dennis Landers. Includes fold-out map at back. [From front jacket flap] It is impossible to give any idea of the number of travellers who are always to be met on the English roads. You cannot go from one post to another (six or seven miles) without meeting two or three post-chaises quite apart from the regular diligences. What would De La Rochefoucauld, the famous eighteenth century reformer and traveller, have thought of the roads today? Michael Brander decided to try and bridge this gap in time and the result is Soho for East Anglia; an illuminating and entertaining comparison between East Anglia in the late eighteenth century and today. His chief guide is De La Rochefoucauld but he also uses many other contemporary writings. He began and ended his comparative pilgrimage at Cambridge and visited meanwhile Maldon, Woodbridge, Lowestoft and Holkham, to mention but a few of the places. He describes inns, architecture and country people, both celebrated and obscure, but his main interests are agriculture and sport, about which he has many pertinent things to say. The whole book is enlivened by the many amusing anecdotes and sporting stories; these give it its own special charm. It is a personal travel book which captures the essential spirit of East Anglia and it is complemented by Dennis Flanders' many delightful illustrations. Soho for East Anglia, a worthy successor to Soho for the Colonel and the author's other books, will appeal to all who appreciate the particular flavour of the English countryside. The word Soho originates from an old hunting cry used to encourage hounds on a scent.