The Bridges of Madison County

This article is about the book. For the film, see The Bridges of Madison County (film). For the musical, see The Bridges of Madison County (musical). For the bridges, see List of Madison County Covered Bridges.
The Bridges of Madison County
First edition
AuthorRobert James Waller
LanguageEnglish
PublisherWarner Books, Inc.
Publication date
1992
Publication placeUnited States
Media typePrint (hardback & paperback)
Pages192 pp
ISBN0-446-51652-X
OCLC24246926
813/.54 20
LC ClassPS3573.A4347 B75 1992
Followed byA Thousand Country Roads 

The Bridges of Madison County (also published as Love in Black and White)[1] is a 1992 best-selling romance novel[2][3] by American writer Robert James Waller that tells the story of an Italian-American World War II war bride living on a farm in 1960s Madison County, Iowa. While her husband and children are away at the State Fair, she engages in an affair with a National Geographic photographer from Bellingham, Washington, who is visiting Madison County to create a photographic essay on the covered bridges in the area. The novel is presented as a novelization of a true story, but it is in fact entirely fictional.

The novel is one of the bestselling books of the 20th century, with 50 million copies sold worldwide.[4] It was adapted into a feature film in 1995 and a musical in 2013.

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference ind was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference nyt was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ Gleiberman, Owen (June 9, 1995). "The Bridges of Madison County". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved September 9, 2018.
  4. ^ "'Bridges of Madison County' author Waller dies at age 77". Reuters. 10 March 2017. Retrieved 1 September 2023.