Queen Mary's Doll's House - Tapa dura

When a dolls house has been designed by the most famous architect of his time, filled with specially commissioned objects of the very best contemporary domestic, industrial and artistic design, and presented to a queen for her personal pleasure, then surely a detailed study of it is justified. It is that story, with the remarkable photographic record of the house and its contents which accompanies it, which this book tells. The house was presented to Queen Mary in 1924 as a gesture of goodwill from the artists, craftsmen and authors most prominent at the time. It is not only a royal treasure; it shows in miniature a detailed picture of a domestic interior, and of an established way of life, in the period after World War I - and of course, unlike virtually every full-sized example of the kind, it remains entirely unmodernised. The craftsmanship visible in the contents of the forty rooms and vestibules is unparalleled, and it is presented here in David Cripps's photographs to capture an English period scene of incomparable charm.

Mary Stewart-Wilson was born and brought up in Somerset, grand-daughter of the talented animal artist Francis Mabel Hollams. She married Blair Stewart-Wilson, Scots Guards, who from 1976 to 1994 was Deputy Master of The Queen's Household and Equerry to Her Majesty. Her interests are in the theatre and arts, and she is the mother of three daughters. She is the author of The Royal Mews (1991). She lectures widely on both the Mews and the Dolls' House.