Nancy Lancaster: Her Life, Her World, Her Art

by Robert Becker

Book Overview

A portrait of Nancy Lancaster's life and work celebrates her artistic talents while chronicling her pre-World War I childhood in Virginia, her marriages and love affairs, and her friendships with the... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0394567919
• ISBN13: 9780394567914
• Release Date: February 1996
• Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf
• Length: 426 Pages
• Weight: 1.89 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.5" x 6.6" x 9.6"

Customer Reviews

Nancy was from Virginia & taught England how to live large

A wonderful life story about the woman who helped us all know how to live life at the top. What style, what grace, what spunk - I simply adore her & this was the first book that introduced her to the world. I am traveling to England to tour her homes in 2 weeks & re-read this again along with the other books on her life.

First Rate Biography of Nancy Lancaster

Robert Becker has written a fascinating book on the life of Nancy Lancaster which I have just read in the summer of 2000. It is even more timely with the new biography of Sister Parrish just out this summer. Becker is an extremely good story teller, with a fine ability to capture the life and times of his subject. My family is from the same area of Virginia, and he has the piedmont Virginia people described in the most believeable way, including expressions of the eras covered. The technique of incorporating Nancy Lancaster's own account in the body of the book is most effective. I was worried in reading the introduction that it might be intrusive, but not so. The book made me think of Eleanor Brown of Mcmillan and Company in New York, and Sarah Hunter Kelly - all decorators of the same generation. Hats off to Robert Becker!!! Nicholas Bragg

Excellent Book! Lovers of history & Decor should read this!

I could not put this book down! This woman, who most of the public probably never heard of, lived a fascinating life. The world WAS a smaller place long ago and far away....

I couldn't put it down!

Robert Becker's richly detailed look at the British and American "upper crust," and his entertaining account of their private world and its decline, reminded me of an episode of "Masterpiece Theater" or the book "Brideshead Revisited." While I thought the renderings of Nancy Lancaster's decorating and garden designs fascinating, I was most absorbed in the life that went on behind closed doors in the houses, and the people -- Winston Churchill, the Prince of Wales, Lady Astor, David Niven -- who crossed the houses' thresholds. Wonderful photographs also. I was not prepared to like a biography about a decorator and her work, but because of the way Becker wove together the social and political history of the time, and descriptions of the houses she owned and decorated, with the events of this extraordinary woman's life, I couldn't put it down.

Excellent read if you are interested in this time of life.

Having worked for Nancy Lancaster in her last house,the 'Coach House' in Oxfordshire, I found this a fascinating read. Her life was very full and she met and knew so many interesting people of whom she was interested in talking about. Her style was to be envied and even copied. I would love a copy of this to read again.