{"product_id":"under-the-tuscan-sun-easton-press-signed-collectors-edition","title":"Under the Tuscan Sun (Easton Press Signed Collector's Edition)","description":"\u003cp class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eMAYES, Frances.\u003c\/strong\u003e \u003cem\u003eUnder the Tuscan Sun: At Home in Italy.\u003c\/em\u003e Norwalk, Connecticut: The Easton Press, 2015.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]\"\u003eOctavo. Full burgundy leather. Spine with four raised bands, 22-carat gilt accents. All edges gilt. Moiré silk endpapers. Satin ribbon page marker. 280 pp. \u003cstrong\u003eSigned Collector's Edition. Part of the Easton Press Signed Modern Classics series. Signed by the author on the special title page. Includes signed Certificate of Authenticity, edition card, and bookplate adhered to front endpaper.\u003c\/strong\u003e Originally published San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 1996.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]\"\u003eFrances Mayes — widely published poet, gourmet cook, and travel writer, named the Bard of Tuscany by the \u003cem\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/em\u003e — bought an abandoned villa in the hill town of Cortona in the early 1990s on what she has described as a magnificent impulse. The house was called Bramasole, from the Italian archaic verb \u003cem\u003ebramare\u003c\/em\u003e, meaning to yearn for. It had been uninhabited for decades, its terraced lands run wild, its rooms occupied by scorpions and faded frescoes and the accumulated disorder of long neglect. Mayes and her partner Ed began restoring it. She began writing about the experience.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]\"\u003e\u003cem\u003eUnder the Tuscan Sun\u003c\/em\u003e, first published by Chronicle Books in 1996, became one of the defining books of its era. It spent more than two and a half years on the \u003cem\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/em\u003e bestseller list and has been translated into more than fifty languages. The book belongs to a genre — the literary memoir of voluntary expatriation to a slower, more sensuous corner of Europe — that Peter Mayle had established with \u003cem\u003eA Year in Provence\u003c\/em\u003e in 1989, but Mayes brought to the form the resources of a poet: a precision of observation, a sensitivity to the quality of light and the texture of stone and the particular taste of wine from a specific hillside, that elevated it above the merely aspirational. The writing is in love with its subject, and the love is earned through attention rather than sentiment.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]\"\u003eThe villa, the restoration, the markets and vineyards and hill towns of the Casentino and the Valdichiana, the neighbours and the seasons and the dozens of recipes interwoven with the narrative — all of it is rendered with a vividness that made Bramasole a destination for readers long before the 2003 film adaptation directed by Audrey Wells and starring Diane Lane brought the book to an even wider audience. Mayes has continued to write about Tuscany across multiple subsequent volumes, but \u003cem\u003eUnder the Tuscan Sun\u003c\/em\u003e remains the original and defining work.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eNear fine. \u003c\/strong\u003eMarkings to upper edge gilt; otherwise fine throughout.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]\"\u003eThis book is currently not on display in store. If you would like more information or to arrange a viewing, please contact: \u003ca href=\"mailto:rarebooks@harryhartog.com.au\" title=\"Harry Hartog Rare Book Department\"\u003erarebooks@harryhartog.com.au\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eCatalogue Number: HH000497\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Frances Mayes","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49070284275955,"sku":"1110002990229","price":100.0,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0634\/4284\/5939\/files\/1_1e2b6f8c-1b8b-4d8d-8785-b71d19a20c14.png?v=1779065356","url":"https:\/\/www.harryhartog.com.au\/products\/under-the-tuscan-sun-easton-press-signed-collectors-edition","provider":"Harry Hartog Bookseller","version":"1.0","type":"link"}