Click
here
to visit the site. Garden, Art & 2009 open days.
Click
here to see the slide show of The Domaine garden.
SOME MORE INTERESTING BOOKS
ON SOUTHERN FRANCE
Escape to Provence by
Maureen Emerson.
Two Vagabonds in Languedoc
by Jan &
Cora Gordon.
The Good Straight Englishwoman by Amanda Davies.
Americans And The Making Of The Riviera
by Michael Nelson.
Queen Victoria and the Discovery of The Riviera by Michael Nelson.
The French Riviera A Literary Guide For Travellers by Ted Jones.
and a very warm welcome!
Thank you for
visiting the site which has developed from a love of Lady Winifred Fortescue's books, France, and in particular, Provence and the Alpes-Maritimes.
At the height of their popularity, in the 1930's - 40's, her books
sold many thousands of copies making Winifred Fortescue a best
selling author and bringing overnight fame. Concerned
that interest in her books and her amazing life might fade with the
passage of time, it was a delight to find that when Black Swan
re-published some of the books in the 1990's they became best
sellers once again. Perfume from Provence was serialized for
BBC Radio 4 and released on a BBC audio cassette tape in the 1990's.
The reader was the well known British actress Stephanie Cole.
Winifred Fortescue was a woman
ahead of her time who, faced with various forms of adversity,
would turn her hand to anything, make a go of it and generally
succeed - usually but not always with a touch of laughter. I hope
the web site will help to keep her work alive and allow you to enjoy
some of the locations and personalities that Winifred new and, in
addition, introduce new generations to the delights of Perfume
from Provence.
Stop Press:
After nearly 75 years, and for the first time since 2000, Perfume
from Provence has just been re-published by Summersdale and is now
available. Sunset House, the sequel, will
follow in Spring 2010. More details below.
The Provence
that Winifred & John Fortescue moved to in the 1930's
has changed almost beyond recognition. Her view down the mountain from
'Sunset House' now reveals a golf course resort, out of town shopping
centre and many developments and roads although Opio village is largely
unchanged. Grasse & Cannes have grown considerably and Nice, of
course, is a very busy cosmopolitan city and resort. That said, many of the
buildings in the books remain including the 'Domaine' and 'Sunset House',
both in private ownership. Please browse through the pages, there are currently over
100. More photographs of locations that feature in her books will be
added from time to time.
Comments, contributions,
photographs, information & suggestions are welcomed. Please do use the
visitors book or send an
email via the email link. The
site is not commercial but second hand copies of books are sometimes
available. Any income from the sale of
spare books is donated to charity.
Winifred Fortescue
was born in a Suffolk
rectory on 7th February 1888, the third child of a country rector and connected,
on her mother's side, to the Fighting Battyes of India. When she was seventeen - in order to ease the
strain on family finances - she decided to try to earn her own living and went
on the stage, performing in Sir Herbert Tree's company, and later starring in
Jerome K. Jerome's The Passing of the Third Floor Back. In 1914 she married John Fortescue, the
King's Librarian and Archivist and famous historian of the British Army. The
marriage, in spite of a huge disparity of age between them, (some 28yrs),was a uniquely happy
one, and although Winifred Fortescue gave up her career on the stage, she later
began a successful interior decorating and dress designing business until
illness forced her to close her business down. It was at that point that she
began writing, for Punch, the DailyChronicle, the
Evening
News, finally inaugurating and editing a Woman's Page for the Morning
Post. (Sir
Herbert Beerbohm Tree founded RADA in 1904 and was Grandfather of actor
Oliver Reed).
In the early 1930's John and Winifred Fortescue, now Sir John and Lady Fortescue, moved to Provence and there she
wrote her famous and best selling book Perfume
from Provence, and the sequel Sunset
House. Her autobiography, There's
Rosemary, There's Rue, was first published in 1939. Trampled
Lilies continues her story including her escape from France and the
Nazi's during WW II. Her three further books are Mountain Madness,
Beauty for Ashesand Laughter
in Provence. Thesecover the period back in England until WWII
ended, memories of holidays in the Alps and the the return to her home in
France to resume life in the sunshine after the war.
Winifred Fortescue died in Opio,
Provence, in April 1951.
A fuller biography can be found on the Lady
Fortescue page.
June 2009
REMINDER
Maureen Emerson,theauthor of
'Escape to Provence', is giving an illustrated talk at Haywards Heath
Library in
Sussex on July 17th. If you are in the south of England this is a
great
opportunity to hear Maureen in person. Full details on the 'Escape to Provence' page.
Another early aerial photo of
Opio Village has been obtained and added to the site. This one
is in colour! It shows the olive mill, Elisabeth Starr's home,
the Castello, and a tiny corner of Sunset House Click
here.
Maureen Emerson, the author of
'Escape to Provence', has written a fascinating detailed history
of the Sunny Bank Anglo American Hospital, (now demolished), at
Cannes. To read the article visit the Cannes
page.
May 2009
Perfume from Provence - as
promised, brand new, just published copies are now available in
bookshops, Amazon or direct from the publisher free of postage.
Click here for more details. If you do
not have a copy or just want a brand new shiny one to keep why not
treat yourself now! The website has been given a quote on the back
cover notes! Thank you very much to Summersdale for the publicity.
Remember that Sunset House follows in Spring 2010.
Apologies if you have had trouble
viewing the site recently. The hosting company has been migrating it
to their new hosting platform and it has not gone very smoothly!
Bits were missing for a few days and it was impossible to update for
nearly a week.
Set of 3 Black Swan edition
paperbacks in very good condition and 2 full length un-abridged
talking books on 6 cassette tapes each currently available to buy.
Click here for more details.
Pictures of the full cover of the
new 2009 Perfume from Provence edition added along with new
pictures of Sunset House and Trampled Lilies Talking
Book tape versions.
Maureen Emerson,author of
'Escape to Provence', is giving a talk at Haywards Heath in
Sussex on July 17th. If you are in the south of England this is an
opportunity to hear Maureen in person. Full details on the 'Escape to Provence' page.
Larger better quality PDF versions
of John & Winifred's birth, marriage and death certificates added.
April 2009
The Chemin de Fer Provence will
once again be operating the steam hauled service on Sundays
between May 17th and October 11th 2009. Full details and link to
timetable on CDFP page.
An interesting 1941 USA
magazine entitled, The Saturday Review of Literature, has
recently been secured. It contains a review of
There's Rosemary There's Rue shortly after it was
published in the USA. Click
here to see the review.
Contributor Mr. P. Martin has
sent a scan of his collection of books - click
here to see the covers. The
pictures are of very high quality but have had to be 'watered
down' to make the page open. Do you have any interesting jackets
that might be missing?
'Escape to Provence'.
New copies now available from author Maureen Emerson following
the re-print of her book. The price is now £10.99 plus £2 p&p.
To order direct from the author/publisher, click
here.
March 2009
The 2009 opening dates and
times for the garden at Villa Fort France, Winifred Fortescue's
original home, are now available. If you are in the area its
well worth a visit to see the lovely garden. The Fort France garden brochure
has been added to the added to site. Click
here for full details.
Black Swan editions of Lady
Fortescue's first three books are available to purchase at £18
on the book sale page.
A new review of Maureen
Emerson's Book, 'Escape to Provence', has been published
in the
West Sussex County Times. Click
here to see all the reviews
of this excellent book.
February 2009
The company
that hosts the website are in the process of moving to a new and
better hosting platform! As a result certain features may not
work as normal, for the time being. In particular, the forms
used for the visitors book and book order pages are slightly
problematic! If you experience any difficulty just send an email
by using
enquiries@perfumefromprovence.com There may be the odd page
hiccup from time to time but normal service will be resumed as
soon as possible. Please continue to enjoy visiting the site and
leaving your messages. - Peter, Webmaster.
UPDATE
- New form for the Visitors Book is now installed and works
well. It also has a nice anti-spam feature to prove humans are
submitting the form and not robots. Do give it a try. Most web
users will have seen it before. A similar form for the book
ordering page will follow.
UPDATE
- A new form has now been installed on the book order page.
Thank you for your patience. Any problems, do let me know!
'Escape to
Provence', by Maureen Emerson. A re-print is currently being
arranged and new copies, priced at £10.99, should be available
later this Spring. Maureen will be
promoting her book in France in April
2009. Click here
for details. A review by
the LMS Magazine of Sophia Antipolis has been
added to the site.
January 2009
I am absolutely
delighted to confirm that nearly 75 years after it first appeared, Winifred Fortescue's original book,
Perfume from Provence, is being re-printed and will be
available from May 5th 2009. Published by
Summersdale Publishing
Ltd, as part of the Summersdale Revival Series, this will be the first re-print since the Black Swan
edition of 2000. With 320 pages, and priced at just £7.99, it is sure
to become a best seller once again. This edition carries a
completely new cover design which is very fitting. To
add to this exciting news,
Summersdale have also confirmed they will be
launching a new edition of the the sequel, Sunset House, in
Spring 2010. What a marvellous start to 2009!
AVAILABILITY
The new 2009 edition will be
available from May 5th through
Amazon or direct from the publishers
www.summersdale.com.
An order form is available if you prefer to send a cheque by
post. Visitors to this site can obtain the book post free by
this method, courtesy of
Summersdale.
It will also appear in book shops and for the first time in its
history the book will also be available as an e-book
which means it can be downloaded direct from the publishers web
site in due course. What would Winifred Fortescue have made of
that? For full details click here.
Visit the
Summersdale
web site to see their fabulous range of products.
I hope you enjoy browsing
the pages, there are now over 100!
Remember to bookmark the site and
come back often.
