Product Description

Edith Wharton’s Italian Villas and Their Gardens, a seminal work on garden design, is a testament to the passionate connoisseurship of one of America’s greatest writers. A comprehensive look at the history and character of Italian garden architecture and ornamentation, the book explores more than seventy-five villas, capturing what Wharton calls their "garden-magic" and illuminating the intimate relationship between the house, its formal gardens, and the surrounding countryside.This beautiful hardcover facsimile is carefully reproduced from the first edition published in 1904 and features all of the original plates, including twenty-six illustrations by Maxfield Parrish, as well as décollage edges. It is published in association with The Mount Press. A portion of the proceeds of the sale of the book support the restoration of The Mount, the Massachusetts estate designed and built by Wharton based on the principles articulated in this book and in The Decoration of Houses. Elegantly written and informed by Wharton’s sensitivity and wit, Italian Villas and Their Gardens is a work that belongs on the shelf of every lover of gardens and good taste.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #47606 in Books
• Published on: 2008-05-20
• Released on: 2008-05-20
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 284 pages

Review
"...Parish illustrations, in trademark dreamy, fairy-tale style--seems to dislocate these legendary gardens from time altogether." ~Forbes Life

"...a piece of classic garden literature." ~Italian Cooking & Living

"Wharton combines garden and travel writing from a true insider's perspective with descriptive mastery of what she terms the "garden-magic" of Italy." ~Southern Accents

About the Author
Edith Wharton (1862–1937) was the first woman awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, an honorary Doctorate of Letters from Yale University, and full membership in the American Academy of Arts and Letters. John Dixon Hunt is a professor of landscape architecture at the University of Pennsylvania. Maxfield Parrish (1870–1966) was a renowned American painter and illustrator.

Customer Reviews

Amazing Re-print
My sister read about this book in a recent magazine and we are totally delighted to see that it was available as a reprint from the original plates. Maxfield Parrish, the painter, did the illustrations and they are wonderful in their dreamlike qualities. And the prose by Ms Wharton are flowing and typical of the turn of the last century.

I would recommend this book as a coffe table book, a piece of art and a conversation piece all in one.