Cote D'Azur: Inventing the French Riviera

by Mary Blume

The French Riviera, with its beaches, luxury villas and highstakes gambling, has been the world's favourite playground for more than a century, ever since a French poet gave this strip of land an indelible new the Cote d'Azur. Monte Carlo, Nice, Cannes, Cap d'Antibes and Saint-Tropez are synonyms for holiday pleasures both simple and refined. Queen Victoria; Coco Chanel; Picasso; Tobias Smollett; Fitzgerald, Huxley and the great, the dubious and the eccentric of every generation have made the Cote d'Azur their own. This social history shows how a string of fishing villages came to represent fantasy and escape - a place for a dream of pleasure. Mary Blume describes the Cote d'Azur, enhanced by interviews with those who frequented the Riviera in its heyday, and with its modern players. Contemporary images and photographs bring to life a fabulous locale, to which the famous and infamous, the gifted and notorious came to live their own myths.

Genres: History, France

208 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1992

Reviews

[J Eseltine · Rating 2 out of 5]

A favorite topic to read about but didn't love this book.

The tone came across as cynical and depressing which may just be a reflection of the state of the Riviera at the time the book was written, but it was a downer. Also, Blume mentions a lot of people without providing brief biographical information to introduce them and give context. The map was next to worthless. I spent more time looking up people's names and detailed maps than I did reading the text of the book.