{"product_id":"letter-from-provence-sheryle-bagwell-9781761473531","title":"Letter from Provence: Two Women, Two Centuries, and a Village House in France","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eAustralian journalist Sheryle Bagwell's move to Provence is enlivened by the discovery of a book of seventeenth-century letters.\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eAfter buying an ancient stone house in Provence, Australian journalist Sheryle Bagwell finds in her attic an old edition of selected letters by the seventeenth-century French noblewoman Madame de Sévigné, who died, she discovers, in the grand chateau down the road. So begins Sheryle's new life in southern France as she deals with an ageing house, a combative neighbor and a foreign language-all infused with her reading of the glittering yet doomed world of Louis XIV's France. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eMadame de Sévigné wrote hundreds of witty, acerbic-and heartfelt-letters from Paris and Brittany to her beloved daughter who had moved to the chateau in Provence after marrying a count. Madame de Sévigné's correspondence has been hailed down the centuries by the likes of Marcel Proust and Virginia Woolf, who described her as a 'genius of the art of speech'. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eSheryle soon, too, falls under Madame de Sévigné's spell; she thinks of her as an early blogger in an era when even proper newspapers had yet to emerge. But above all, Madame de Sévigné's ardent letters to her daughter prompt Sheryle to reflect on the life of her own long-dead mother, whose thwarted dreams of one day travelling to France she is now fulfilling. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"\u003cb\u003eThe hopes and dreams passed between mothers and daughters. A beautiful book, compulsively readable.\" --Susan Johnson, author of \u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eAphrodite's Breath\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Sheryle Bagwell\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 1761473530\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9781761473531\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Allen \u0026amp; Unwin\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 08\/04\/2026\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 304\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback","brand":"Sheryle Bagwell","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":48623601221887,"sku":"9781761473531","price":27.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/letter-from-provence-sheryle-bagwell-9781761473531","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}