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Though most know her as the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of novels such as The Age of Innocence and The House of Mirth, Edith Wharton was also something of a doyenne of domestic taste, and fortunately neither a nearsighted nor a parochial one. She published the first serious treatment of Italian garden architecture, Italian Villas and Their Gardens, in 1904. A lifelong Italophile as well as a lifelong gardener herself, Wharton had an instinctive attraction to both the clipped precision and the sensuous disarray that characterise an Italian villa garden. Nineteen of the gardens Wharton and her illustrator Maxfield Parrish brought to public attention are virtually unchanged by the passage of the single century since her descriptions were written. Garden photographer and writer Vivian Russell has recaptured both the essence of the gardens themselves and Wharton's experience of them in a series of luscious photographs and historical summaries of each garden. The Villa Cetinale, pictured on the cover from the vantage point of its lemon garden, was singled out by Wharton for its charm and its long green park, marked by a 15th-century gateway at one end and a romitorio, or hermitage, at the other.
The book's considerable charm lies in the historical perspective it affords of Wharton and her Victorian colleagues as well as the many centuries borne so gracefully by the beautiful land they loved. It's a marvellous homage to Wharton and a must-read for all lovers of things Italian.
Synopsis
This is a story of two journeys, separated by almost a century, yet both focusing on Italian gardens. The book provides detailed practical information on where the gardens are and how to find them. There are also historical maps and plans included. In 1903, Edith Wharton was commissioned by "Century Magazine" to write a series of articles on Italian villas and gardens. She selected 70, and spent six months visiting them by train, carriage, bicycle and even by motor car. She took her own photographs, made copious notes, and her scholarly approach turned what might have been a series of frivolous articles into material for a book (1904) which has been in print ever since. Nearly 100 years later, Vivian Russell followed in her footsteps. Some gardens had been obliterated by two World Wars, others by tourism or simply by neglect. But many remained, unspoilt and virtually unknown, some from as far back as the Renaissance. But Russell, like Wharton, is interested in people as well as gardens. The book includes extracts by Wharton: there are encounters with gardeners, architects and designers. Edith Wharton is the author of "The House of Mirth", "Ethan Frome", "The Buccaneers" and "The Ag
EDITH WHARTON'S life unfolded across the continents of Europe and America, and like all transplanted Americans she could never belong wholly to either. Read the first page
Concordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover