More Was Lost: A Memoir

Best known for her classic gardening bookGreen Thoughts- A Writer in the Garden, Eleanor Perenyi had quite a wordly life before settling down in Connecticut with her flowers.More Was Lostis a memoir of her youth abroad, written in the early days of World War II after her return to the United States. In 1937, at the age of nineteen, in the midst of a European tour with her mother, Perenyi falls in love with a poor Hungarian baron and in short order acquires both a title and a struggling country estate at the edge of the Carpathians. She throws herself into this new agrarian life with zeal, learning Hungarian, and observing the invisible order of the Czech rule, the resentment of the native Ruthenians, and the haughtiness of the dispossessed Hungarians. In the midst of massive political upheaval and shifting allegiances, Perenyi and her husband remain steadfast in their dedication to their new life together, an alliance that would soon be tested by the war. With old-fashioned ease, frankness, and wit, Perenyi recounts this tragic tale of how much was gained and how much more was lost.