In this first U.S. publication of a richly comic classic -- originally published in England in the 1920s -- the pitfalls and vicissitudes of home building are presented in sharp and unforgettable detail, in the form of letters to and from the architect -- a hapless young man named James Spinlove, who, in his valiant attempts to create the Honeywood mansion for Sir Leslie Brash, encounters a motley collection of contractors, surveyors, plumbers and town planners -- to say nothing of intensely litigious lawyers, and Sir Leslie Brash himself, along with his good lady. There are letters from the subsidiary but crucial characters named Nibnose & Rasper, Mr Snitch, V. Potch and Hoochkoft the surveyor of bricks, among others.