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Complete and unabridged paperback edition.

Edith Wharton born Edith Newbold Jones; January 24, 1862 - August 11, 1937) was a Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist, short story writer, and designer. She was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1927, 1928 and 1930. Wharton combined her insider's view of America's... Read Full Overview

This, indeed, is the only destiny one can imagine for them. The past of such a place must have been as bucolic as its present: the medi val keep, crumbling on its wooded spur above the Rhine, was surely perched there that the lords of the valley might have an eye to the grazing... Read Full Overview

This, indeed, is the only destiny one can imagine for them. The past of such a place must have been as bucolic as its present: the medi val keep, crumbling on its wooded spur above the Rhine, was surely perched there that the lords of the valley might have an eye to the grazing... Read Full Overview

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original... Read Full Overview

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original... Read Full Overview

To the mind curious in contrasts-surely one of the chief pleasures of travel-there can be no better preparation for a descent into Italy than a sojourn among the upperSwiss valleys. To pass from the region of the obviously picturesque-the country contrived, it would seem, for... Read Full Overview

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it.

This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely... Read Full Overview

Reprint of Edith Wharton's classic "Italian Backgrounds".

To the mind curious in contrasts-surely one of the chief pleasures of travel- there can be no better preparation for a descent into Italy than a sojourn among the upper Swiss valleys. To pass from the region of the obviously picturesque-the country contrived, it would seem, for... Read Full Overview

To the mind curious in contrasts-surely one of the chief pleasures of travel- there can be no better preparation for a descent into Italy than a sojourn among the upper Swiss valleys. To pass from the region of the obviously picturesque-the country contrived, it would seem, for... Read Full Overview

To the mind curious in contrasts-surely one of the chief pleasures of travel- there can be no better preparation for a descent into Italy than a sojourn among the upper Swiss valleys. To pass from the region of the obviously picturesque-the country contrived, it would seem, for... Read Full Overview

To the mind curious in contrasts-surely one of the chief pleasures of travel- there can be no better preparation for a descent into Italy than a sojourn among the upper Swiss valleys. To pass from the region of the obviously picturesque-the country contrived, it would seem, for... Read Full Overview

To the mind curious in contrasts-surely one of the chief pleasures of travel- there can be no better preparation for a descent into Italy than a sojourn among the upper Swiss valleys. To pass from the region of the obviously picturesque-the country contrived, it would seem, for... Read Full Overview

To the mind curious in contrasts-surely one of the chief pleasures of travel- there can be no better preparation for a descent into Italy than a sojourn among the upper Swiss valleys. To pass from the region of the obviously picturesque-the country contrived, it would seem, for... Read Full Overview

Nowhere is this contrast more acutely felt than in one of the upper Grisons villages.The anecdotic Switzerland of the lakes is too remote from Italy, geographically and morally, to evoke a comparison. The toy chalet, with its air of self-conscious neatness, making onefeel that... Read Full Overview