Product Information
In the summer of 1816 paparazzi trained their telescopes on the goings on of poets Byron and Shelley - and their womenfolk - across Lake Geneva. Mary Shelley babysat and wrote FRANKENSTEIN. Byron dieted and penned THE PRISONER OF CHILLON. His doctor, Polidori, was dreaming up THE VAMPYRE. Together they put Switzerland on the map. Switzerland has always provided a refuge for writers attracted to it as an escape from world wars, oppression, tuberculosis... or marriage. While often for Swiss writers from Rousseau to Bouvier the country was like a gilded prison or sanatorium. The Romantics, the utopians (Wells, D. H. Lawrence) and other spiritual seekers (Hesse), viewed Switzerland as a land of milk and honey, as nature's paradise. In the twentieth century, spying in neutral Switzerland, spawned espionage and detective fiction from Conan Doyle to Maugham, Fleming, and Le Carre. Padraig Rooney finds the rooms crammed with curios: lederhosen and Lepidoptera, spas and spies, fool's gold and numbered accounts. Literary detective work and treasure chest, history and scandal, THE GILDED CHALET will make you strap on your skis and go off-piste to find out the real Swiss story.Product Identifiers
PublisherJohn Murray Press
ISBN-139781857886528
eBay Product ID (ePID)233018744
Product Key Features
Book TitleThe Gilded Chalet: Travels Through Literary Switzerland
AuthorPadraig Rooney
FormatPaperback
LanguageEnglish
TopicLiterature
Publication Year2017
GenreBiographies & True Stories
Number of Pages320 Pages
Dimensions
Item Height196mm
Item Width128mm
Additional Product Features
Title_AuthorPadraig Rooney
Country/Region of ManufactureUnited Kingdom