Images & Shadows: Part of a Life (Nonpareil Book, 82)

Like an American heiress in a tale by Henry James, Iris Origo (1902-1988) was born into a world of "unfair advantages of education, money, environment, and opportunity." She used her birthright wisely, traveling the world, studying art with Berenson, and, with her Italian husband, improving the land and the lot of peasants in the Val d'Orcia of Tuscany. She tells her life story in Images & Shadows, and the result is "a small classic... Origo recreates the lost mad world of Bernard Berenson and his Anglo-American artistic coterie in Florence. She is also marvelous at nuances of place and personality, writing with a subtle mingling of candor and affection that lingers in the mind" (Fiona MacCarthy).