“… Edith Wharton, the most English of Americans, and the most French of novelists writing in English eventually found the haven that had been an almost physical need for all her life.” (p. In 1919, Edith Wharton who was living in Paris then discovered the south of France. They also created exotic tropical gardens in Eze, Nice, Menton and elsewhere, bringing eucalyptus trees from Australia, cypresses from Mexico, and rare plants and flowers from all over the world. It begins in the nineteenth century when British aristocrats discovered the sleepy French villages on the Mediterranean, and turned them into winter resorts, building casinos, hotels, castles and cottages, some reminiscent of those in England. The book is a richly illustrated history of the French Riviera created first by the British, and later after World War I, by the Americans. It is an image of a group of extraordinarily talented people who lived and worked, loved and died on the French Riviera, people who did not really belong there but who made the place their own.Īnd one of the best books I have come across that brings together the sensory and the imaginary, the permanent and the transient, is the one written by Philippe Collas and Eric Villedary entitled Edith Wharton’s French Riviera. Then there is the other image, one that has its place in our imagination: ethereal and evanescent, based on stories we have heard, books we have read, black and white photos we have come across.

This image of overwhelming beauty is tangible, present and constant. The power of the image lies also in its appeal to our senses of taste and smell, of Provençal food, and of jasmine and the bougainvillea. When one dreams of Provence and the French Riviera, two interlaced images float before our eyes: one is of the physical beauty of the place: its bright blue skies, and bluer sea, and its light that turns everything into a work of art, from the deep oranges, velvet greens, and golden yellows of nature to their reflection in the roofs and walls of every town and village of the Midi. The French title of the book was La Côte d’Azur au Temps d’Edith Wharton. The following is my review of Edith Wharton’s French Riviera, by Philippe Collas and Eric Villedary, and translated from the French by Susan Pickford.

Discoveries by Edith Flamarion