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Hardback. English. Jonathan Cape. 1963. In good condition.
In his huge glittering chronicle Niccolo Tucci re-discovers his family history and re-creates an atmosphere of emotional as well as worldly opulence that has in our lifetime faded from the world. Against this elaborate background, a young and beautiful girl (the author's mother before her marriage) is seen travelling in Europe with her own extraordinary mother. The girl is romantic, sheltered, unformed. The older woman, a figure of tyrannical strength and intellectual power, is both a life-giver and a life-destroyer the matriarch of a large, wildly emotional, Russian millionaire family. Daughter and mother travelling like royalty with a retinue of master chef, butler, retired governess, maids and packers, accompanied by their furniture, wardrobe trunks and a famous chaise