{"product_id":"9781429942959","title":"Queen Bee of Tuscany: The Redoubtable Janet Ross","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e\"Quite simply one of the best books of the year.\" —Michael Dirda, \u003ci\u003eThe Washington Post\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBen Downing's \u003ci\u003eQueen Bee of Tuscany\u003c\/i\u003e brings an extraordinary Victorian back to life. Born into a distinguished intellectual family and raised among luminaries such as Dickens and Thackeray, Janet Ross married at eighteen and went to live in Egypt. There, for the next six years, she wrote for the London \u003ci\u003eTimes\u003c\/i\u003e, hobnobbed with the developer of the Suez Canal, and humiliated pashas in horse races. In 1867 she moved to Florence, Italy where she spent the remaining sixty years of her life writing a series of books and hosting a colorful miscellany of friends and neighbors, from Mark Twain to Bernard Berenson, at Poggio Gherardo, her house in the hills above the city. Eventually she became the acknowledged doyenne of the Anglo-Florentine colony, as it was known. Yet she was also immersed in the rural life of Tuscany: An avid agriculturalist, she closely supervised the farms on her estate and the sharecroppers who worked them, often pitching in on grape and olive harvests. \u003cbr\u003e     Spirited, erudite, and supremely well-connected, Ross was one of the most dynamic women of her day. Her life offers a fascinating window on fascinating times, from the Risorgimento to the rise of fascism.\u003cbr\u003e     Encompassing all this rich history, \u003ci\u003eQueen Bee of Tuscany\u003c\/i\u003e is a panoramic portrait of an age, a family, and our evolving love affair with Tuscany.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA \u003ci\u003eWashington Post \u003c\/i\u003eNotable Nonfiction Book of 2013\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Farrar, Straus and Giroux","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47141778850032,"sku":"9781429942959","price":14.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9781429942959_p0.jpg?v=1769901878","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9781429942959","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}