Letters of a Dead Man (Ex Horto: Dumbarton Oaks Texts in Garden and Landscape Studies)

About this book

In 1826 the prince of Pckler-Muskau embarked on a tour of England Wales and Ireland. Although captivated by all things British his initial objective was to find a wealthy bride. He and his wife Lucie having expended every resource on a plan to transform their estate into a vast landscape park agreed to an amicable divorce freeing him to forge an advantageous alliance that could rescue their project. For over two years Pcklers letters home conveyed a vivid often quirky and highly entertaining account of his travels. From the metropolis of London he toured the mines and factories of the Industrial Revolution and visited the grand estates and spectacular art collections maintained by its beneficiaries. He encountered the scourge of rural and urban poverty and found common cause with the oppressed Irish. With his gift for description Pckler evokes the spectacular landscapes of Wales the perils of transportation and the gentle respite of manor houses and country inns. Part memoir part travelogue and political commentary part epistolary novel Pcklers rhetorical flare and acute observationsprovoked the German poet Heinrich Heine to characterize him as the most fashionable of eccentric menDiogenes on horseback.