From Booklist
In prerevolutionary France, wealth and ego combined to produce the ultimate in garden ornaments. These buildings--known as follies--were monuments to vanity; often purely decorative, they could ostensibly function as a place to accommodate a romantic tryst or entertain guests with a musical performance. Superb architectural watercolors by the authors illustrate each folly, along with fine reproductions of original garden plans and of paintings and engravings of the period. Although many of these sites no longer exist, the book shows fantastical structures constructed on no more than a passing whim to possess an orangerie filled with tropical blooms or to emulate an Italian grotto with a monstrous head spewing a hellish deluge out its vast mouth. For the curious traveler, a listing indicates buildings currently open to public visitors. Alice Joyce
