Sweet and Glorious Land Book

"I eventually came across an edition of Gissing's work... At one moment, halfway through my reading of this classic, I turned to my wife and said that I wanted to visit Italy and follow in the footsteps Gissing made in 1897 during his third and final trip to Italy: from Naples where he boarded the coastal steamer south to Paola; and from there, in a horse-drawn carriage, through the Calabrian mountains to Cosenza. From Cosenza, he went by train to Taranto and, using a combination of trains and carriages, made it all the way to Reggio di Calabria. It was a journey that covered much of the foot of Italy, principally along the coastal instep of the Ionian Sea... I wanted to see, one hundred years after Gissing, how these ancient lands looked." - from A Sweet and Glorious Land In the winter of 1897-1898, Victorian writer George Gissing made a well-chronicled journey throughout southern Italy. The result was a book, By the Ionian Sea, in which he detailed the influence of ancient Greece on the peninsula and contrasted the glory of Greece and its magnificent cities to the southern Italy of the late 1800s. The book was published in 1901 and has since become a classic in travel literature. A hundred years later, award-winning newspaper journalist John Keahey sets off to retrace Gissing's footsteps. His goal is to compare and contrast the two Italys, seeing first-hand all the changes that have occurred over the past century. He explores the outdoor markets in Naples, journeys to the charming coastal town of Paola, takes a train ride out of the Calabrian mountain town of Cosenza and into the port city of Taranto, and makes his way down to Reggio at the toe of Italy's boot. Along the route, he visits modern-day Crotone, the Ionian coastal city that was famous in antiquity as the place where Pythagoras had his school, as well as where Hannibal, pursued for 15 years along the length of Italy by the Romans, embarked in shame for Carthage (now in modern-day Tunisia). Going beyond Gissing's journey, Keahey also makes an additional stop at Sibari near where the site of ancient Sybaris has been partially excavated. From train rides through the lush countryside to the crisp mountain air of Catanzaro, Keahey paints a beautiful and compelling picture of one of the lesser known parts of the country. Reminiscent of Under the Tuscan Sun, A Sweet and Glorious Land is not only a wonderful travelogue but also an intriguing story of southern Italy and its people. Praise for A Sweet and Glorious Land: "John Keahey's idea of visiting the shores of the Ionian Sea under the expert guidance of his predecessor, the Victorian novelist and traveller George Gissing, has proved a brilliant one, fertilizing his own originality and giving breadth to his lightly-worn learning." (Pierre Coustillas, editor of The Gissing Journal and Professor of English Literature at the University of Lille, France)Read More