The Oriental: Life Story of a West End Club 1979 Denys Forrest ~ History of East India Company's Oriental Club, Hanover Square, London

Title: The Oriental: Life Story of a West End Club
Author: Denys Forrest / With a Foreword by Sir Percival Griffiths
Publication: London: B. T. Batsford Ltd, 1979

Description: Second edition, with supplement 1979. Scarlet cloth boards with gilt lettering on spine. Short gift inscription on front free endpaper and small spot of soiling on top edge, else fine. Dust jacket in an archival mylar sleeve. 17-pages of photographs and illustrations on plates, including frontispiece. Index. 256 pages.

A history of the the Oriental, one of the oldest of the great London clubs. Founded in 1824, the Oriental originally supplied a West End base for the servants of the East India Company. It was located on the north-west corner of Hanover Square, where it remained until 1961, when it moved to the historic mansion Stratford House, a few hundred yards away.

This volume offers a wide and amusing anecdotage about clubmen of the Golden Age--their dining and gambling habits, their grumbles and occasional rows--and takes a close and sympathetic look at the lives of the staff. It also incorporates the extraordinary story of Stratford House itself. Built nearly 200 years ago on the site of the Lord Mayor's medieval Banqueting House, it passed through a dizzying succession of ownerships, ending in our own time with Lord Derby and Walter Hutchinson, and a happy survival as one of the last of the 'private palaces of London'.

The text is matched by prints, drawings and photographs illustrating both the Hanover Square and Stratford Place phases of the Oriental's history.

Binding: Hardcover
Condition: VG+
Jacket Condition: Near Fine

ISBN: 0713421495

Keywords: Oriental Club, London, England, West End, clubs, history, private clubs, private members clubs, clubmen, East India Company, Hanover Square, Stratford House,