The Cruise of The Vanadis (Hardcover)

by Edith Wharton (Author), Jonas Dovydenas (Photographer)

Editorial Reviews

Review
'In her log of the Vanadis we have a kind of dress rehearsal for the fiction of one of America's greatest novelists We see in what she wrote about her cruise that she was ready to set her stages, to fill her backgrounds, to create the world in which her characters would enact her plots. The characters and plots would come in due time' From the Introduction by Louis Auchincloss --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Description
In collaboration with Edith Wharton Restoration, Rizzoli is proud to participate in a rare literary event-the publication of a recently discovered manuscript by Edith Wharton, one of America's greatest writers.
It was the winter of 1888. Edith Wharton was 26 and had been married three years. She confided in a Newport friend and cousin-in-law, James Van Alen, that there was nothing she wanted more than to make a cruise in the Mediterranean. Van Alen arranged for the charter of a yacht called the Vanadis, and Edith and her husband set off on the trip of a lifetime.
During the cruise Wharton elegantly recorded her reactions to each place along the route. Afterwards, she put the manuscript aside and began to work on her first novel. The manuscript lay untouched and undiscovered for the next one hundred years.
Annotated with timeless photographs and commentary by award-winning photographer Jonas Dovydenas, who faithfully retraced Wharton's route, and with a new introduction by renowned novelist Louis Auchincloss, this will be a gift edition for Wharton fans to cherish.


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Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Rizzoli (June 19, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0847826090
• ISBN-13: 978-0847826094
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 7.2 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,189,056 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant Start, June 14, 2004

By	John E. Dixon (Chevy Chase, MD) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Cruise of the Vanadis (Hardcover)

In 1888, when she was 26 and well before her first works were published, the writer Edith Wharton, with her husband and cousin, valet and maid, chartered a steam-yacht, 167 feet long, with a crew of 16, to sail through the Mediterranean for nearly three months visiting its ancient ports and islands. She documented this voyage in a private journal which has recently been "discovered" and now has been published, illustrated by the photographer Jonas Dovydenas, who over several years visited many of sites which Whatorn had described more than 100 years earlier. The book stands by itself as an extremely well written travel document with strongly honest opinons and vivid descriptions by a highly cultured young heiress. For the Wharton admirer, it also shows the young artist on the verge of launching a brilliant writing career. Many of the idioms associated with her work are on view here for the first time. The photographs are beautiful reminders of that storied landscape. Areas covered include Algiers, Malta, Syracuse, Palermo, Corfu, Rhodes, Smyrna, Mount Athos, and Dalmatia.