Overview

In 1903 Edith Wharton was commissioned by Century Magazine to write a series of articles on Italian villas and gardens. She gathered her household together and set off with her husband, her housekeeper and her small dogs on a four-month tour of Italy. Her articles were published in 1904 as Italian Villas and their Gardens. One of the first books to treat the subject of Italian garden architecture seriously, it influenced a generation of garden writers and landscape architects. Nearly 100 years later, photographer and writer Vivian Russell set out on her own odyssey, following Edith Wharton's footsteps around Italy to photograph the best surviving gardens from her book and to tell the story of how each one was made. her lively text describes the patrons and architects who created the gardens and explores their hidden symbolic meaning.

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9780711211551

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You can spend a long, tranquil afternoon of enchantment with this book, visiting gardens you could see only after hours of frustrating negotiation, if you get in at all Daily Telegraph ... the fascinating account of two women, separated by almost a century, who made the same autumnal journey through some of the country's most beautiful gardens Sunday Times ... she brings together some splendid photographs and juxtapositions of the old, the novelist's eye and the modern reality -- Robin Lane Fox Financial Times

The author re-traces the steps of American writer Edith Wharton who in 1904, undertook at the request of Century Magazine a major tour of the great historic landscaped gardens of Italy. Her book Italian Villas and their Gardens, was one of the pioneering works of Italian garden architecture. Russell has now described and photographed the best survivng gardens from that book to produce an intriguing book of her own. (Kirkus UK)

You can spend a long, tranquil afternoon of enchantment with this book, visiting gardens you could see only after hours of frustrating negotiation, if you get in at all Daily Telegraph ... the fascinating account of two women, separated by almost a century, who made the same autumnal journey through some of the country's most beautiful gardens Sunday Times ... she brings together some splendid photographs and juxtapositions of the old, the novelist's eye and the modern reality -- Robin Lane Fox Financial Times

Author Information

Vivian Russell is a writer and photographer. An American by birth, she has lived in England and France for most of her life. Her book Monet's Garden won two Garden Writers' Guild Awards. She was a regular contributor to both Gardens Illustrated and the Daily Telegraph gardening supplement for many years.

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