England's Thousand Best Houses by JENKINS, Simon (born 1943)

London: Allen Lane, 2003. [Architecture] SIGNED FIRST EDITION. Octavo (25 x 17cm), pp.[xl]; 950. Publisher's red cloth with gilt titles, red endpapers, in pictorial dust-jacket. Internally clean, author's signature in blue ink to title page. No rubbing or wear, wrapper is unclipped. Fine. Columnist for the Guardian and the Evening Standard, and former chair of the National Trust, Jenkins has compiled a list of buildings loosely termed "houses", covering great estates, halls, abbeys, private homes, schools, and prisons -- with the proviso that there should be a measure of public accessibility. It is thus a sort of general guidebook to extant examples of architecture throughout the UK.