Building Taliesin: Frank Lloyd Wright's Home of Love and Loss

Wisconsin Historical Society Press, 2012. 5th Printing . Photographic Wraps. Near Fine/No Jacket as Issued. A crisp, clean Near Fine copy with some light creasing to the bottom forecorner edges of the back matter. Still a collectible copy. 223 pp., index. Laid in is an article "Frank Lloyd Wight and Feminism: Mamah Borthwick's Letters to Ellen Key" by Alice T. Friedman. Through letters, memoirs, contemporary documents, and a stunning assemblage of photographs - many of which have never before been published - author Ron McCrea tells the fascinating story of the building of Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin, which would be the architect's principal residence for the rest of his life. Photos taken by Wright's associates show rare views of Taliesin under construction and illustrate Wright's own recollections of the first summer there and the craftsmen who worked on the site. The book also brings to life Wrights "kindred spirit," "she for whom Taliesin had first taken form," Mamah Borthwick. Wright and Borthwick had each abandoned their families to be together, causing a scandal that reverberated far beyond Wright's beloved Wisconsin valley. The shocking murder and fire that took place at Taliesin in August 1914 brought this first phase of life at Taliesin to a tragic end.