Florence: Ordeal by Water
STOP PRESS! Pre-orders are now open for this title!*
A brand new edition of Kathrine Kressmann Taylor’s forgotten diaries, chronicling the 1966 floods in Florence - now re-issued over 50 years after they were first published, introduced by Vanessa Nicolson and illustrated by Agnesbic.
“There will be many accounts of Florence’s Ordeal in November 1966. but Ms Kressman Taylor’s will surely be the most vivid and moving.”
To showcase this wonderful book, we commissioned the writer and art historian Vanessa Nicolson to pen a new introduction – she lives in both Florence and Kent, and is the author of the brilliant novel Angels of Mud, which is set in 1940s London and 1960s Florence, and tells the story of the aftermath of the floods.
Kathrine Kressmann Taylor was a recently retired American living in Florence in 1966. She remained there to witness the flood and its aftermath, including the days of isolation without light, food, water that followed the initial disaster.
Standing, incredulous, at the window of her pensione on the morning of 4th November 1966, Kathrine saw the the brown torrent of the river Arno – thick with flotsam, oil drums, cars, chairs, trees – rising into the streets. Her infinitely moving diary of the days of the flood, and those that followed, detail how the citizens of Florence strove against the choking sea of mud that engulfed their homes, possessions, shops and art.
The author is perhaps most well-known for her 1938 novella - the international bestseller Address Unknown - a haunting tale written on the eve of the Holocaust which predicted the full horrors of Nazism.
Her trademark succinct yet vivid style is evident in this powerful Florence diary too. The book is an intensely personal account through which we can visualise the thickness of the torrent streaked with chrome yellow; the elderly scholars saving works of art; a great swan, coated with black fuel oil, flailing for life; a woman singing as she attacks devastation with a bucket and a rag; the mudheaps spangled with splinters of red, gold and silver Christmas tree ornament; and the men and women searching through debris for belongings accumulated over many generations.
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Each book ordered through the website will be wrapped in tissue paper and tied with a matching silk ribbon, free of charge - and will also include an exclusive bookmark designed to complement the cover design.
*Please note, all orders of this book will be posted as soon as stock arrives in our office - we estimate around September 2024. If you are buying other titles at the same time and would like these straight away, it’s best to order those separately, otherwise they will all be processed together!
Kathrine Kressman Taylor (1903–96) was born in Portland, Oregon. She studied English literature and journalism at the University of Oregon, where she graduated in 1924, before moving to San Francisco. In 1928, she married Elliott Taylor, an editor and owner of an advertising agency. During the Great Depression, the couple lived on a farm in Southern Oregon before relocating to New York City. After the Second World War she became a lecturer, and eventually the first female tenured Professor, at the University of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, where she taught for nearly 20 years in the English department before retiring and making her home in Florence, Italy. In 1967, Taylor was remarried to John Rood, a sculptor, and divided her time between Minneapolis, Minnesota, and a villa near Florence.
Vanessa Nicolson is a writer, art historian, art journalist and author of two memoirs, Have You Been Good and The Truth Game. Her novel, Angels of Mud, is set in both London and Florence, where she spent her childhood, travelling between a British father and Florentine mother. She graduated from Sussex University in Art History and Italian in 1979. She began her career at the Tate Gallery and has since worked as a feature writer, reviewer, curator and film programmer as well as an interviewer for the British Library Sound Archive ‘Artist’s Lives’ project, making recordings with artists such as Anthony Gormley. Vanessa is married to the journalist and writer Andrew Davidson and lives in Sissinghurst, Kent.
Agnesbic is an Italian / British illustrator based in Brighton, UK. Her work draws inspiration from a love of mid-century design, travel, and the warm colours of Tuscany, where she grew up. With bold colour palettes, economic use of lines and closely observed details, Agnes’ compositions are simple yet striking; distinctive in their characterful optimism, youth and elegance. Her designs have been commissioned by a wide range of international companies and institutions, including Harrods, the New York Times, Soho House, Simon & Schuster, Virgin, NY Mag, Vanity Fair France, Chronicle Books, Victoria’s Secret, Bergdorf Goodman, UBS and Elle magazine, among many others.
