A building inhabited by George Nathaniel Curzon became a building with a history - one written by himself. Envisaging his own presence there as the latest episode in a colourful pageant of stirring deeds and raw emotions, he wanted that pageant to be properly chronicled. Sitting in Government House, Calcutta, he reflected, 'If these stones could speak, what a tale they might tell' - and told it for them in a book that he saw as his literary monument, to be read hundreds of years after his death. He commemorated many of his residences - Bodiam and Walmer Castles, Tattershall and Kedleston - between hard covers. He lovingly restored most of them and left two to the National Trust, of which he was a strong advocate.

LRB 22 December 1994 | PDF Download