PEERAGE AND BARONETAGE

Like Sir Walter Elliot, baronet of Kellynch Hall ( Persuasion), this book has a fine lineage – next year’s edition is the 100th. A guide to Britain’s titled families, to Walter, it is “occupation for an idle hour, and consolation in a distressed one”. To Austen’s social climbers it would have been a bible, while modern readers, will marvel at the existence of 1,298 baronets in the United Kingdom today.

£295, debretts.com