Provence - by Ford Madox Ford (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Now considered a cult classic, this dreamy portrait of Provence before World War II brings the storied region in vivid color. From one of the great British authors of the twentieth century, this whimsical, personal, and sensual overview of Provençal life, culture, architecture, and history will transport you straight to the south of France.

Pre-World War II Provence, "not a country nor the home of a race, but a frame of mind," is the subject of Ford Madox Ford's whimsically comprehensive exploration of the history, personal experience, and miscellaneous sensations that enrich his vision of the region.

With a new introduction by Nicholas Delbanco, and illustrations by Ford's companion, Janice Biala, Provence is not so much a travel narrative as an invocation, recalling to mind the fascination this quiet, fertile place held for artists and writers during a period of imminent cultural and political upheaval.

Review Quotes

"The expansiveness and exuberance of spirit, the embracing knowledge of the place, that show forth in Ford's long love affair with Provence will always give this book a joyous life of its own." --Eudora Welty

"A fine writer, with traces of a most engaging charlatan.... As in his fiction he writes out of a kind of hilarious depression. The world of today, with its Northern barbarians and its cellophaned foods, is a foul place, but there is always memory--and the book becomes an elaborate pattern of memories, historical and personal, called up not only by Provence, the province, but Provence, the idea.... And the subject, I suppose, is just the good life--as it should be lived by the world." --Graham Greene

About the Author

Ford Madox Ford (1873-1939) was a prolific novelist and critic. Also an influential editor, he created the literary journals The English Review and The Transatlantic Review, in whose pages he published work by authors such as Henry James, Joseph Conrad, Ernest Hemingway, Ezra Pound, D. H. Lawrence, Jean Rhys, James Joyce, Gertrude Stein, and many more. His 1915 novel The Good Soldier is widely regarded as one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century.

Nicholas Delbanco is the author of more than thirty books of fiction and nonfiction, including, most recently, Still Life at Eighty: A Memoir, Why Writing Matters, and the novel It Is Enough. He is the Robert Frost Distinguished University Professor Emeritus of English Language and Literature at the University of Michigan. He lives in New York City and Cape Cod.