The Private World of Tasha Tudor [Hardcover]

Tasha Tudor (Illustrator), Richard Brown (Photographer), Barbara Werden (Designer)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 1992

Tasha Tudor has written and illustrated more than seventy-five beloved children's books since her first, Pumpkin Moonshine, in 1938. Now seventy-seven years old, she lives on a farm in southern Vermont, where she has recreated an early Victorian world. To capture this intimate portrait of Tasha Tudor, photographer Richard Brown followed her throughout a year on her farm. By interweaving Tudor's own words and more than 100 color photographs, Brown has evoked the essence of Tudor's uniquely appealing personality and way of life. The inspiration for Tudor's art is evident in her delightful surroundings. Foremost is the magnificent garden she designed and rightfully calls "Paradise on earth." A lively menagerie is always underfoot, indoors and out, including her trademark corgies, the Nubian goats she milks twice a day, the one-eyed cat Minou, the chickens, fantail doves, and the cockatiels, canaries, exotic finches, and parrots that inhabit a virtual village of antique cages. We watch Tudor at work in a corner of her winter kitchen, her "chipmunk's nest, " on the delicate watercolors and drawings that illustrate the books and calendars that have charmed three generations. Examples of her work are scattered throughout the book, including many drawings from her sketchbook and vignettes never previously published. Her enchanting three-story dollhouse is featured in detail as are her handmade dolls and marionettes as well as the candlelit tree that is the centerpiece of Tasha Tudor's old-fashioned New England Christmas. Born in 1914 into Boston society (she sat on Oliver Wendell Holmes's knee as a child; Mark Twain and Albert Einstein were also her parents' friends), Tudor felt from an earlyage that she had lived before, in the 1830s. She says, "Everything comes so easily to me from that period, of that time: threading a loom, growing flax, spinning, milking a cow." Dressed in antique clothing, spinning and weaving her own linen, cooking on a woodstove with nineteenth

Product Details

• Hardcover: 134 pages
• Publisher: Little, Brown and Company; 1st edition (January 1, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0316112925
• ISBN-13: 978-0316112925
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 0.8 x 10.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #58,045 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

65 of 66 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What a fantastic lady!, May 15, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: The Private World of Tasha Tudor (Hardcover)

This is an absolutely wonderful book about a woman who lives her life as people did in the 1830s. She grows her own fruits and vegetables, preserves them, wears clothes that are either from the 1800s or like them, bakes her own bread, weaves, has a wonderful and lovely garden, raises birds, goats, and or course Corgis, and paints wonderful pictures for us all to enjoy. The photographs are beautiful, and the text provides some real food for thought. Really did love this book.

60 of 61 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Vision of Creating the Life You Want, June 25, 2001

By 

Donald Mitchell "Jesus Loves You!" (Thanks for Providing My Reviews over 109,000 Helpful Votes Globally) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Private World of Tasha Tudor (Hardcover)

Summary: Ms. Tasha Tudor always wanted "to live on a secluded farm . . . with a garden and a menagerie of household pets and barnyard animals, and to illustrate children's books." And that's exactly what she did. This gorgeous book lovingly displays her life and her illustrations while recounting her personal philosophy of living an 1830's style life.

Review: Ms. Tudor's "greatest pleasure is clearly her garden." After seeing the spectacular images of the blooms bursting from that rocky Vermont soil, your views of what can be done with gardens will be transformed forever. For example, she has over 1000 daffodils. The book also features many lovely still lifes featuring blossoms, as well as garden-focused landscapes.

Much of her life is home-spun, literally. She spins her own cloth, and makes her own clothes from it. The clothing she wears will remind you of the costumes you have seen at Colonial Williamsburg and Old Sturbridge Village in Massachusetts. But these are her daily garb. She has carefully dressed the rest of her life to match her preferences, as well.

Walking barefoot through her home, she enjoys her exotic birds (especially the silly sayings from her parrots) and corgis. The book also shows many fine drawings of the corgis.

Cooking is also a great joy, and she makes her own preserves. She sees the opportunity to display "artistry as a cook."

As to the 1830's, she says that "I'm drawn to the old ways, convinced that I lived before, in the 1830's." "When I die, I'm going right back to 1830." Seeing her life portrayed here, you'll swear she never left. Seeing her in her home reminds me of Orchard House in Concord, Massachusetts where the Alcott family lived in the 19th century. The wardrobe there contains dresses that the Alcott daughters used in their theatrical productions that also evoke the images in this wonderful book.

Her professional interest in illustration was stimulated by seeing the drawings in The Vicar of Wakefield. Through the time this book was written, she had illustrated more than 75 children's books. You will enjoy seeing her work in this book.

After you finish looking at the delightful images here, and being warmed by the thoughtful expression of a considered life, you should think about what elements would bring perfection to your life if you crafted it as carefully as an artist does a large marble sculpture. What do you need to chip away? What do you need to refine? Where should the sculpture be displayed?

Make living a wonderful art!

46 of 48 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars All her books are great..this one is a gem, December 19, 2002

By 

MotherLodeBeth "MotherLodeBeth" (Sierras of California) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Private World of Tasha Tudor (Hardcover)

This was an early Christmas gift along with four other Tasha Tudor books and I LOVE it. Maybe because there is a bit of Tasha Tudor in me or because we live in a small cottage in the Sierras and have chickens, goats, vegetable, herb and flower gardens and love many of the same things she loves.

I like the fact that like Beatrix Potter another author I adore, she lives an authentic homestead life and loves her livestock, painting and making things with her hands. And I found some helpful tricks for catching the occasional mouse that gets in the place. And it is nice to read where someone else uses the good china daily and doesn't save it just for company. Or the joy of wearing clothes that some antique dealer would think are to valuable. And as she notes on page 112 "It satisfies me to spin and knit and weave. I love to be self sufficient, to learn how to make everything I use."

She speaks about and there are accompanying photos of the changes of seasons and the joys she encounters along the way. Her goats, sheep, chickens, rabbits and wild birds. Her cooking, spinning and how she plans for the joys in her life.

But I guess one thing I liked so much was her philosophy which she says comes in part from Henry David Thoreau and says "If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours." As she says "That is my credo. It is absolutely true. It is my whole life summed up."