Further reading

The reading list on this page has been compiled for anyone who would like to learn more about Chatsworth and the Cavendish family. You can also download a much more detailed reading list of publications on the family, Chatsworth and other family estates, as well as other individuals and topics represented in the Devonshire Collection Archives.  

DETAILED READING LIST

Publications about Chatsworth

• Barnatt, John, and Tom Williamson. Chatsworth: A Landscape History. Bollington: Windgather Press, 2005.
• Cavendish, Deborah, Duchess of Devonshire. The Estate: A View from Chatsworth. London: Macmillan, 1990.
• Cavendish, Deborah, Duchess of Devonshire. Chatsworth: The House. London: Frances Lincoln 2002.
• Cavendish, Deborah, Duchess of Devonshire. The Garden at Chatsworth. London: Francis Lincoln, 1999.
• Thompson, Francis. A History of Chatsworth: Being a Supplement to the Sixth Duke of Devonshire’s Handbook. London: Country Life, 1949.

Publications about Hardwick

• Adshead, David and David A.H.B. Taylor (eds.). Hardwick Hall: A Great Old Castle of Romance. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2016.

Publications about the Cavendish Family

• Bickley, Francis Lawrence. The Cavendish Family. London: Constable, 1911.
• Hattersley, Roy. The Devonshires: The Story of a Family and a Nation. London: Chatto & Windus, 2013.
• Pearson, John. Stags and Serpents: The Story of the House of Cavendish and the Dukes of Devonshire. London: Macmillan, 1983. Rev. ed. Bakewell: Country Books, 2001.

Individual Biographies

1500-1700

• Durant, David N. Bess of Hardwick: Portrait of an Elizabethan Dynast. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1977. Rev. pbk. ed. London: Peter Owen Ltd, 1999.
• Gristwood, Sarah. Arbella: England's Lost Queen. London: Bantam Press, 2003.
• Hubbard, Kate. Devices and Desires: Bess of Hardwick and the Building of Elizabethan England. London: Chatto & Windus, 2018.
• Lovell, Mary S. Bess of Hardwick: First Lady of Chatsworth, 1527-1608. London: Little Brown, 2005.

1700-1800

• Brown, P.D. and K. Schweizer, (eds.). The Devonshire Diary: William Cavendish, Fourth Duke of Devonshire, Memoranda on State of Affairs 1759-1762. London: Royal Historical Society, 1982.
• Chapman, Caroline, and Jane Dormer. Elizabeth & Georgiana: The Duke of Devonshire and His Two Duchesses. London: John Murray, 2002.
• Foreman, Amanda. Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire. London: HarperCollins, 1998.
• Jungnickel, Christine, and Russell McCormmach. Cavendish: The Experimental Life. Bucknell: Pennsylvania, 1999. Rev. ed. 2001. Rev. ed. Berlin: Edition Open Access, 2016. About Henry Cavendish, the scientist.

1800-1900

• Jackson, Patrick. The Last of the Whigs: A Political Biography of Lord Hartington, later Eighth Duke of Devonshire (1833-1908). Cranbury, London and Mississauga: Associated University Presses, 1994.
• Lees-Milne, James. The Bachelor Duke: A Life of William Spencer Cavendish, 6th Duke of Devonshire, 1790-1858. London: John Murray, 1991.
• Murphy, Sophia. The Duchess of Devonshire's Ball. London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1984.
• Vane, Henry. Affair of State: A Biography of the 8th Duke and Duchess of Devonshire. London: Peter Owen, 2004.

1900-2000s

• Downie, Jill. Storming the Castle: The World of Dora and the Duchess. Toronto: Key Porter Books, 1998. This deals partly with Duchess Evelyn and the 9^th Duke of Devonshire. Dora Lee was their cook.
• Cavendish, Andrew, Duke of Devonshire. Accidents of Fortune. Norwich: Michael Russell Publishing, 2004.
• Cavendish, Deborah, Duchess of Devonshire. Wait for Me! Memoirs of the Youngest Mitford Sister. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2010.
• Guinness, Jonathan and Catherine Guinness. The House of Mitford. London: Orion, 2004. [New updated ed.]
• Lovell, Mary S. The Mitford Girls: The Biography of an Extraordinary Family. London: Little, Brown, 2001.
• Phillips, Dorothy Anne, Victor and Evie: British Aristocrats in Wartime Rideau Hall. McGill-Queen's University Press, 2017.

Publications about Sir Joseph Paxton

• Chadwick, G.F. The Works of Sir Joseph Paxton, 1803-1865. London: The Architectural Press, 1961.
• Colquhoun, Kate. A Thing in Disguise: The Visionary Life of Joseph Paxton. London and New York: Fourth Estate, 2003.

Publications about Thomas Hobbes

• Malcolm, Noel. A Summary Biography of Hobbes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.
• Tuck, Richard. Hobbes: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.

Publications about the Devonshire Collections

• Barker, Nicolas, et al. The Devonshire Inheritance: Five Centuries of Collecting at Chatsworth. Alexandria, Virginia: Art Services International, 2003.
• Blunt, Anthony. Treasures from Chatsworth: The Devonshire Inheritance. Washington: International Exhibitions Foundation, 1979. 
• Boschung, Dietrich, Henner Von Hesberg, and Andreas Linfert, Die Antiken Skulpturen in Chatsworth: Sowie in Dunham Massey und Withington Hall. Mainz am Rhein: Philipp von Zabern, 1997. 
• Hall, Michael. "Changes at Chatsworth: Interview with the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire." Apollo 167, no.555 (June 2008): 22-26. 
• Jaffé, Michael. Old Master Drawings from Chatsworth. London: British Museum Press, 1993.
• Jaffé, Michael. The Devonshire Collection of Italian Drawings, A Complete Catalogue, 4 vols. London: Phaidon Press, 1994.
• Jaffé, Michael. The Devonshire Collection of Northern European Drawings, A Complete Catalogue, 5 vols. Turin/London/Venice: Umberto Allemandi, 2002.
• Noble, Charles. "Lismore Castle in Transition." Irish Arts Review 35 (Spring 2018): 124-9.
• Noble, Charles, and Alison Yarrington. "'Like a Poet's Dreams': The Redisplay of the 6th Duke of Devonshire's Sculpture Gallery at Chatsworth." Apollo 170, no.570 (November 2009): 46-53.
• Noble, Charles, and Philip Riden, "A Rediscovered Painting of the Second Duke of Devonshire from the Collection of John Dodsley of Skegby Hall." Transactions of the Thoroton Society of Nottinghamshire 123 (2019): 153-162. 
• Obee, Hannah, "The Golden Age Returns." Apollo 167, no.555 (June 2008), 60-67.
• Obee, Hannah, "Baroque Exuberance: Delft Flower Vases at Chatsworth." Apollo 167, no.555 (June 2008): 90-97. 
• Orgel, Stephen, and Roy Strong. Inigo Jones: The Theatre of the Stuart Court. 2 vols. London: Sotheby Parke Bernet Publications Ltd; Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1973. 
• Scarisbrick, Diana. "All that Glistens." Country Life (7 April 1994): 66-7.
• Westman, Annabel, "A Royal Bed at Chatsworth: the puzzle of the 4th Duke's perquisite." Apollo 167, no.555 (June 2008): 68-75.
• Yarrington, Alison. "'Under Italian Skies': the 6th Duke of Devonshire, Canova and the Formation of the Sculpture Gallery at Chatsworth House." Journal of Anglo-Italian Studies 10 (2009): 41-62.