Routledge Revivals
1 total work
Late in 1942, although the greatest war the world has yet known was at its most crucial stage, the authors of this book dreamed of publishing the Roederer series of Fragonard’s Orlando Furioso drawings. They already had three drawings under their custodianship: two in the Harvard Library and one in the National Gallery. But there were one hundred and thirty-four more in the series. And no publisher or sponsor was in sight. Despite- or perhaps because of-these difficulties they determined to find a way to bring their idea of fruition. No one of the authors, however, would then have believed that two and a half years later the preface to this work, which was the last bit of writing done, could take shape on one of those perfect June days in Cambridge which James Russell Lowell celebrates; that Italy and France would be free, Germany crushed, and Japan driven to the desperate defense of her home island!