Desiring Italy

For centuries Italy has been many things to many people. In this brilliant anthology and traveler's companion, twenty-eight first-rate women writers reveal why the land that is the heart and soul of European civilization is so seductive to women.

Kate Simon walks us through a Siena filled with surprises and luminous beauty. Elizabeth Spencer writes of first coming to Italy and finding "home." Shirley Hazzard explores the mysteries of Naples. Muriel Spark writes on Venice, Edith Wharton on Rome, George Eliot on Florence, Barbara Grizzuti Harrison on San Gimignano, Patricia Hampl on Assisi. Other wonderful writers contemplate the idiosyncratic glories of Italy's architecture, cooking, art, and landscape; its culture; its places and people.

As these writers tell their stories--in fiction, memoir, and essay--of coming to understand Italy, they explore the complexity of their passions for it, mingling affection and ecstasy with intellectual curiosity. Organized geographically--from northern Italy to Rome and on to the south, Desiring Italy offers an enchanting journey for readers and travelers.

This collection of passionate travel writings about Italy includes works by George Eliot, Edith Wharton, Mary McCarthy, Barbara Grizzuti Harrison, Patricia Hampl, and 23 others who reveal why the land that is the heart and soul of European civilization is so seductive to women. 384 pp. 15,000 print.

Under the spell of la dolce vita . . .



For centuries Italy has been many things to many people. In this brilliant anthology and traveler's companion, twenty-eight first-rate women writers reveal why the land that is the heart and soul of European civilization is so seductive to women.



Kate Simon walks us through a Siena filled with surprises and luminous beauty. Elizabeth Spencer writes of first coming to Italy and finding "home." Shirley Hazzard explores the mysteries of Naples. Muriel Spark writes on Venice, Edith Wharton on Rome, George Eliot on Florence, Barbara Grizzuti Harrison on San Gimignano, Patricia Hampl on Assisi. Other wonderful writers contemplate the idiosyncratic glories of Italy's architecture, cooking, art, and landscape; its culture; its places and people.



As these writers tell their stories—in fiction, memoir, and essay—of coming to understand Italy, they explore the complexity of their passions for it, mingling affection and ecstasy with intellectual curiosity. Organized geographically—from northern Italy to Rome and on to the south, Desiring Italy offers an enchanting journey for readers and travelers.

Library Journal

In her collection of 19th- and 20th-century British and American authors writing about Italy, Powers (The Brooklyn Reader, LJ 12/93) has chosen the somber, brooding poetry of the RomanticsRobert Browning, Byron, and Shelleyand the self-reflective contemporary verses of Joseph Brodsky, Richard Wilbur, and Charles Wright. She represents the American and British confrontation with Italian manners through two short stories (by Malamud and Wharton) and in excerpts from the fiction of Forster, James, and John Mortimer, among others. Conversely, Cahill (Wise Women, LJ 5/1/96), whose selections are exclusively by women, has included the ballads of Francesca Alexander and a poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Focusing on the effect of Italy's sensual pageant on visitors' emotional and psychological makeup, she selects the fiction of Francine Prose, Elizabeth von Arnim, and Shirley Hazzard. Travel literature forms the largest segment of both anthologies. Both collections preface each entry with bio-bibliographical information, but Cahill adds, as epilog "for the literary traveler," a fascinating contemporary walking tour of the places mentioned in each selection. She also includes a bibliography of primary and secondary sources. These complementary anthologies are fine additions to the travel collections of public libraries and academic collections supporting the travel literature genre.Lonnie Weatherby, McGill Univ. Lib., Montreal