The Honeywood Settlement

by H.B. Creswell

Overview

A sequel to The Honeywood File (originally published in 1929, and reissued by Academy Chicago in 2000), it takes the form of an epistolary novel. Some of the great comic characters inhabit the pages of this book, and like all comedy, they contain more than a grain of truth. The book tells, in the form of letters gleaned from an architect's files, the excitments and and disasters of designing and building a large country house, with the painful aftermath of clearing up the defects and haggling over the bill.

What makes this book so enjoyable and instructive is the clever interplay of all the diverse characters in the drama, and the author's sagacious and witty running commentary on their performance. The main protagonists are the hapless young architect James Spinlove; Sir Leslie Brash, his peppery and pompous client; the honest John Grigblay, the builder whose down-to-earth common sense gets the job done despite difficulties. Plus a cast of glorious inventions as Hoochcraft, Potch, Nibnose & Rasper, and Beddy & Tinge, quantity surveyors.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780897335669
Publisher:	Chicago Review Press, Incorporated
Publication date:	11/01/2007
Pages:	232
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

H.B. Creswell's books include Grig, Grig in Retirement, and Thomas. He was an architect who lived in England in the 1920s and 1930s.

Editorial Reviews

Priase for The Honeywood File: 

" ... full of human nature; and full of useful information lightly conveyed, for everybody concerned with domestic architecture."
- Arnold Bennett

" .... recommended to the earnest study of all young architects and all those temerarious enough to desire to build their own houses."
- Burlington Magazine

Praise for The Honeywood File: 

"This hilarious 1929 British comedy classic is framed as letters to and from hapless young architect James Spinlove, who is desparately trying to complete construction of a mansion known as Honeywood Grange for the volatile Sir Leslie Brash. The letter-writers include contractors, plumbers, town planners, litigious lawyers, Lady Brash and Hootchcraft, the surveyor of bricks. A narrator (Creswell himself) comments on it all, revealing a great deal of still-oertinent information about house-building."
- Toronto Globe and Mail

"I have admired The Honeywood File and The Honeywood Settlement .... since I was told about them as an architecture student, and never ceased to feel grateful to the lecturer who introduced them to me."
- Leslie Fairweather

From the Publisher