Phenomenal... Utterly absorbing' Sunday Times 'Book of the Week' '[A] fabulous romp of a
book'***** Mail on Sunday A Financial Times 'Book to Read in 2023' In 1835 Lord Brougham
founded Cannes introducing bathing and the manicured lawn to the wilds of the Mediterranean
coast. Today much of that shore has become a concrete mass from which escape is an exclusive
dream. In the intervening years the stretch of seaboard from the red mountains of the Esterel
to the Italian border hosted a cultural phenomenon well in excess of its tiny size. A mere
handful of towns and resorts created by foreign visitors - notably English Russian and
American - attracted the talented rich and famous as well as those who wanted to be. For
nearly two centuries of creativity luxury excess scandal war and corruption the dark and
sparkling world of the Riviera was a temptation for everybody who was anybody. Often frivolous
it was also a potent cultural matrix that inspired the likes of Picasso Matisse Coco Chanel
Scott Fitzgerald Cole Porter James Baldwin Catherine Mansfield the Rolling Stones Sartre
and Stravinsky. In Once Upon a Time World Jonathan Miles presents the remarkable story of the
small strip of French coast that lured the world to its shores. It is a wild and unforgettable
tale that follows the Riviera's transformation from paradise and wilderness to a pollution
imperilled concrete jungle.
