Grand Obsessions: The Life and Work of Walter Burley Griffin and Marion Mahony Griffin by Alasdair McGregor

Book Description

Secondhand. Good condition. Ex library copy with no external stickers. Stickers on inside pages. Partial date due slip on inside page, now covered with a blank ex libris bookplate sticker. Wear to book corners and edges. Marks on imprint page. Dust jacket has light creasing to edges and fading to spine. Dust jacket is now enclosed in protective covering. Body text and binding are still very good.

In this definitive new biography of Griffin - husband and wife - Alasdair McGregor delineates the role each played in the production of their greatest works - Canberra, Castlecrag, Newman College and the rest - and charts their lives, from their childhoods and meeting in Chicago in the employ of the larger-than-life Frank Lloyd Wright, to their battles in Canberra, Melbourne and Sydney, and their swansong in India.

This is a tale of many parts. It traces the lives of two individuals of great talent and vision and their fight against mediocrity. It is the story of the birth of Canberra, telling us as much about the Griffins as it does about ourselves and the troubled birth of the Australian national identity. It is a portrait of a pioneering woman who achieved extraordinary things but was rarely credited for them. And it is an examination of the nature of fame in a young country uncertain of its position in the world. (book flap)