The English Inn Past and Present, a Review of Its History and Social Life.

Cloth, gilt cover-title and illustration, small 4to, 24 cm, xi, 308 pp, 277 ills, facs. From the preface: "The inn has played a large part in the domestic life of England down the centuries. . The inns of each period, especially such as remain intact and unaltered, could be described in any treatise dealing with the recognised phases of house building ; collectively they present a subject for a monograph. A number of excellent books have been issued dealing with inns and coaching from the anecdotal and descriptive point of view, and the literature on the subject is an extensive and growing one, but it seemed to us that there was room for a fairly comprehensive survey of the inn, considered both as a structure and as a repository of social life. As buildings the inns are of the highest appeal, both for their own account and for the centuries of human intercourse, which, to some extent, may be considered as enshrined in them ; we have attempted to range over the subject from the point of view of its historical development, starting with a brief glance at the mediaeval inn and continuing through Tudor and Stuart times to the eighteenth century, with matter relevant to the coaching era, and from thence carrying on the story." Smal booklabel on front free endpaper, endpapers agetoned, a little spotting otherwise Good.…