Perfume from Provence

Perfume from Provence, Blackwoods First Edition 1935

Perfume from Provence, Summersdale Revival Series Edition 2009

Sunset House, Blaclwoods First Edition 1937

Sunset House, Black Swan Edition 1993

THANK YOU

The help and contributions from Lady Fortescue's relatives, Transworld Publishing, Society of Authors, and visitors to the site is much appreciated.

BOOK PAGE

Synopsis of all her books.

BOOK SALE

Find copies of your missing editions. Second hand copies of books are available from the site.

EDITIONS

Scan or photograph a dust wrapper and e-mail it to the site to have it included on the book page. There are still some missing editions.

VISITORS BOOK

Leave a message in the Visitor Book

Please sign the guest book or just have a look at what other people have left.

GALLERY

View the pictures in the gallery pages

Photo's of people & places of interest connected with Winifred.

CONTENTS

View the whole site contents, over 100 pages, listed at a glance and go directly to a particular page by clicking on the hyperlinks.

SEARCH

Enter a word or words to search the whole site.

RECIPE

Traditional Provencal Recipe.

LINKS

Links to related sites of interest.

ARCHIVES

FEATURES

THE DOMAINE WEB SITE

Click here to visit the site. Garden, Art & 2010 visits.

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.

Author
Maureen Emerson

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 been re-published by Summersdale and is now available.

Sunset House artwork by Brian Sanders

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.

There's Rosemary There's Rue Artwork by Brian Sanders

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.

Trampled Lilies artwork by Brian Sanders

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 Daily Chronicle, 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).

Some of the various editions of Winifred's seven books

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 Ashes and Laughter in Provence. These cover 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.

July 2010

Apologies if you have not received a reply to an email in recent weeks. It has only just come to light that the ISP, Orange, have had some of their outgoing mailing addresses blocked by a third party anti spam company. As as result email to certain ISP address have not been delivered. Examples are tiscali.co.uk and virgin.net plus many others. The sender is unaware they have not been delivered. Orange believe they have now solved the problem but if you have been expecting a reply and not received one please email again.

June 2010

The Domaine, (Villa Fort France). Details of 2010 visiting arrangement to the gardens are now on The Domaine page.

Author Maureen Emerson now has a page on Facebook and a small web site where you can read more about the articles she has been researching and working on. Details will still continue to appear on her page on this site of course. A series of talks will take place in France and the U.K. in the autumn.

Follow Maureen on Facebook

A short video of Maureen talking about her publication 'Escape to Provence', (kindly provided by Alice Barker of AMB-Cote d'azur), is now available on her page, click here to view. Some people experienced problems viewing the movie so it is now installed in a simple format which will play automatically when you open the page. The video will loop so if you miss the start you can watch it again. Make sure your sound is turned on!

May 2010

A frequent visitor to the web site has very generously donated a number of hardback copies of Winifred's book. Most are in very good condition and include some first editions, some have dust jackets. Over the coming summer months the details will be added to the site and the proceeds from any sales will be donated to The Chailey Heritage Charity, a special needs school in Sussex which was a favourite of Winifred Fortescue. In the meantime if you are looking for a particular book or edition send a message from the link at the bottom of the page to find out if it's available.

April 2010

The Chemin de Fer de Provence will once again be operating its steam service between May and October 2010. Re-live the narrow gauge steam train that Winifred & John Fortescue used to watch from their garden. Visit the CDFP page for full details and a link to their timetable.

Archive photographs and a plan of the Douane - Coastguard buildings at Ramatuelle, St. Tropez have been added. Winifred & Elisabeth took holidays in these buildings while work was carried out on Sunset House.

March 2010

Our favourite author, (after Winifred Forstecue!), Maureen Emerson gave a splendid talk and slide show to a gathered audience at the Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution last month. Not one to sit back and rest, Maureen has been working on two more projects recently. The first of these is a piece on the life of Hélène Vagliano who was active in the French resistance. Her family had moved from Ascot in Berkshire to Cannes in the south of France in the 1920's. To read the full and very moving story of this incredibly brave young woman who was tortured and murdered by the Gestapo, click here.

February 2010

Maureen Emerson, the author of 'Escape to Provence', is giving an illustrated talk in Bath on Tuesday 23rd February 2010. If you are in the south west of England this is a great opportunity to hear Maureen in person. Full details on the 'Escape to Provence' page.

Escape to Provence by Maureen Emerson, published July 2008

January 2010

Better quality photographs and some early postcard views added to the Grasse page and CDFP page, and better photographs added to the page on the Association des Francais Libres.

Welcome to the site in 2010. All last years updates and news items are now in the archive where they can be viewed at leisure. This year sees more talks by author Maureen Emerson, author of 'Escape to Provence.' Unfortunately Maureen was unable to attend the France Show at Earls Court in January as planned due to the bad weather conditions. More new pages will also be added to the site.

Links to Archives are at bottom of page