Sumptuous photographs by designer Ashley Hicks (who recently photographed the interiors of Buckingham Palace) capture the smouldering spirit of the place: from the state rooms, which house possibly the finest collection of royal Stuart furniture in the world, to the private apartments and gardens, to the behind-the-scenes labyrinth of cellars and attics. Knole provides a window onto English history. The characters who people the pages of the book the grave Elizabethan statesman, the good-for-nothing gadabout at the seedy Court of King James I, the dashing Cavalier, the Restoration rake, the 3rd Duke, that magnificent and melancholy representative of the ancien regime, the whiskery and dark-hearted Mortimer who caused three nights of rioting in 1884 by closing the park to visitors are all representative of their age (members of a family described by Vita Sackville-West as a race too prodigal, too amorous, too weak, too indolent, and too melancholy : in short, a rotten lot, and nearly all stark staring mad. Of course, Vita s torn legacy with the property prompted her dear friend Virginia Woolf to pen Orlando, furthering the place s fame and glamorous lustre. Similarly, the architectural and decorative features of the house, so splendidly revealed by Ashley s photographs, illustrate the different tastes of successive ages, from Thomas Sackville s seventeenth-century makeover of a ramshackle medieval mansion to an early twentieth-century suite of rooms designed in the Bohemian style. Knole has never been illuminated in this way before.

David Hicks is acknowledged as one of the most important interior designers of the late twentieth century, in the company of Albert Hadley and Billy Baldwin. Known for his bold use of color, eclecticism, and geometric designs in carpets and textiles, Hicks turned English decorating on its head in the ’50s and ’60s. His trademark use of electrifying color combinations, and mixing antiques, modern furniture, and abstract paintings became the "in style" for the chic of the day, including Vidal Sassoon and Helena Rubinstein. By the ’70s, David Hicks was a brand; his company was making wallpaper, fabrics, and linens and had outposts in eight countries, including the U.S. where he worked with the young Mark Hampton, and where his wallpaper was used in the White House. "My greatest contribution as an interior designer has been to show people how to use bold color mixtures, how to use patterned carpets, how to light rooms, and how to mix old with new,’’ he stated in his 1968 work, David Hicks on Living—with Taste, the last authoritative book on his work. Written by his son Ashley Hicks, who has unprecedented access to Hicks’s archives, personal photos, journals, and scrapbooks, this is a vibrantly illustrated celebration of a half century of stunning interiors.

Ashley Hicks has created a mix of manifesto, souvenir album, and confession in this collection of noteworthy rooms featuring his own one-of-a-kind interiors along with rooms that have inspired him. The manifesto aspect is rather limited, since Hicks is not a great believer in aesthetic rules or the value of so-called good taste, but as a souvenir album, it charts Hicks s personal creative journey of the last few years, illustrated with photographs of some favorite historical interiors and objects that represent a mixture of source material and inspiration. The book s twelve chapters reveal Hicks s creative process, how he approaches different themes in his own interiors, furniture designs, and works of art, and how these themes can be applied to the works of others. Such subjects as flowers, color, layers, form, pattern, and memory are presented in the context of actual projects. Historical and recent interiors are discussed for their decorative value notable rooms and architecture, including the Pantheon in Rome; Emperor Maximilian s tomb in Innsbruck; the Royal Pavilion, Brighton; and the Petit Trianon at Versailles. Hicks has created a book for devotees of decorating and the history of interior design.

With rare access, interior designer and artist Ashley Hicks has photographed the State Rooms of Buckingham Palace, home of Britain's monarch since 1837. An important representation of Regency, Victorian, and Edwardian styles, the palace is the work of such noted architects as John Nash. Hicks's eye brings a vibrant take on the formal spaces, capturing the magnificent rooms furnished with treasures from the Royal Collection. Starting at the Grand Staircase, Hicks leads us through the opulently decorated State Rooms, which include the White Drawing Room and the Blue Drawing Room that both overlook the palace gardens; the Ballroom, which is the setting for twenty investiture ceremonies each year; and the Throne Room, used by Queen Victoria for spectacular costume balls in the 1840s. The long, skylit Picture Gallery is hung with important works of art in the Royal Collection by Rembrandt, Rubens, Poussin, van Dyck, Vermeer, and Canaletto, among others. Decorative furnishings from George IV's exotic Brighton Pavilion lend a fanciful turn to many of the rooms. This intimate tour through the Buckingham Palace State Rooms is a necessary addition to the libraries of devotees of the royal family, English architecture, decoration, and the fine arts in general.