At 31 Rue Campagne Premiere, Montparnasse, Paris, mid-February, 1930…

…Ex-patriate photographer Man Ray, 39, is going through his mail.

He’s pleased to find a letter from a fellow American, writer Gertrude Stein, just turned 56. He had recently written to her,

Dear Gertrude Stein,

I am leaving in four days and need all the money I can get together for the south.

May I ask you to send me a cheque for 500 frs. for the last serie[s] of photographs?

With many thanks,

Yours

Man Ray’

When he opens the envelope, he is disappointed to find only his own note returned to him. Gertrude has written on the same piece of paper:

Kindly remember that you offered to take the last series of portraits the first time you saw my dog. Kindly remember that I have always refused to sit for anyone to photograph me in order to give you the exclusive rights. Kindly remember that you have never been asked to give me any return for your sale of my photographs. My dear Man Ray, we are all hard up but don’t be silly about it…’

Gertrude Stein and her dog, Basket, by Man Ray

At the website for the Yale University Library, http://brbl-dl.library.yale.edu/vufind/Record/3477184, you can see photos of the actual letters between Stein and Ray, including the two quoted above on pages 30-31.

This year, we’ll be telling stories about these groups of ‘such friends,’ before, during and after their times together.

Manager as Muse explores Scribner’s editor Maxwell Perkins’ work with F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe and is available on Amazon in both print and Kindle versions.

To walk with me and the ‘Such Friends’ through Bloomsbury, download the Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Group audio walking tour from VoiceMap. Look for our upcoming walking tour about the Paris ‘such friends.’

At 27 rue de Fleurus, on the Left Bank of Paris, Christmas Eve, 1926…

…American novelist Sherwood Anderson, 50, is enjoying the annual party given by his fellow Americans, Gertrude Stein, 52, and Alice B. Toklas, 49. His wife Elizabeth, just turned 42, is a bit intimidated as she has not been to the legendary salon before, but Alice has taken her aside for a chat. As she always does with the wives of writers.

Over there is American composer Virgil Thomson, 30, and Sherwood and Elizabeth’s son and daughter appear to be enjoying themselves. But it is awfully hot, due to the new radiators Gertrude and Alice have had installed.

Sherwood is pleasantly surprised that the hottest American writer of them all, Ernest Hemingway, 27, isn’t there. Since Anderson had given Hemingway a letter of introduction to Stein a few years ago, the younger novelist had trashed his benefactor with a vicious parody novel, The Torrents of Spring.

Sherwood Anderson

Stein and Anderson had talked about Hemingway, and as she wrote later, in The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas,

[They] are very funny on the subject of Hemingway. The last time that Sherwood was in Paris they often talked about him. Hemingway had been formed by the two of them and they were both a little proud and a little ashamed of the work of their minds.’

This year, we’ll be telling stories about these groups of ‘such friends,’ before, during and after their times together.

Manager as Muse explores Scribner’s editor Maxwell Perkins’ work with F. Scott Fitzgerald, Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe and is available on Amazon in both print and Kindle versions.

To walk with me and the ‘Such Friends’ through Bloomsbury, download the Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Group audio walking tour from VoiceMap. Look for our upcoming walking tour about the Paris ‘such friends.’

On the Left Bank of Paris, in June, 1927…

…ex-patriate American composer Virgil Thomson, 30, is excited to begin his next project. He has commissioned fellow American Gertrude Stein, 53, to write a libretto for an opera. And now he has received her text.

Gertrude has been working on this since March and, as he expected, having already set some of her shorter works to music, it’s not exactly traditional.

Virgil Thomson and Gertrude Stein working together

Stein and Thomson had decided that the subject would be saints. Maybe four.

Gertrude has written a story about 20 of them, although focusing on two, St. Ignatius of Loyola and St. Teresa of Avila. Virgil is thinking that he may have to write parts for two St. Teresas. And maybe a master and a mistress of ceremonies could actually sing Stein’s stage directions.

Overall, he likes it. Virgil can see in Gertrude’s characters the creative people they all know on the Left Bank, who come to Stein’s salon on rue de Fleurus.

From Four Saints in Three Acts by Gertrude Stein

Pigeons on the grass alas.
Pigeons on the grass alas.
Short longer grass short longer longer shorter yellow grass. Pigeons
large pigeons on the shorter longer yellow grass alas pigeons on the
grass.
If they were not pigeons what were they.
If they were not pigeons on the grass alas what were they. He had
heard of a third and he asked about it it was a magpie in the sky.
If a magpie in the sky on the sky can not cry if the pigeon on the
grass alas can alas and to pass the pigeon on the grass alas and the
magpie in the sky on the sky and to try and to try alas on the
grass alas the pigeon on the grass the pigeon on the grass and alas.
They might be very well they might be very well very well they might
be.
Let Lucy Lily Lily Lucy Lucy let Lucy Lucy Lily Lily Lily Lily
Lily let Lily Lucy Lucy let Lily. Let Lucy Lily.

In the late 1970s I was privileged to meet Virgil Thomson and shake his hand. Thank you, David Stock. RIP.

This year, we’ll be telling stories about these groups of ‘such friends,’ before, during and after their times together.

Manager as Muse explores Scribner’s editor Maxwell Perkins’ work with F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe and is available on Amazon in both print and Kindle versions.

To walk with me and the ‘Such Friends’ through Bloomsbury, download the Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Group audio walking tour from VoiceMap. Look for our upcoming walking tour about the Paris ‘such friends.’

In Madrid, Spain, in June of 1923…

…ex-pat American writer and publisher Bob McAlmon, 27, is watching his first bullfight.

McAlmon came here with his new American buddies from Paris, Ernest Hemingway, 23, and his pregnant wife, Hadley, 31, and publisher Bill Bird, 35. Hem had heard of the glories of the bullring from his mentor in Paris, writer Gertrude Stein, 49, and her partner, Alice B. Toklas, 46. McAlmon is thinking that Hemingway is enjoying this spectacle just because Stein said he should.

Bob is not sure if he is enjoying it, though. Yeah, they’ve got the top seats and the top liquor—but that’s because he’s paying for everything! Ever since Bob’s Paris friends found out that he and his British wife Bryher, 28, are living off her substantial inheritance, they all expect him to pick up the tab.

McAlmon is also paying for the publication of Hemingway’s first book, Three Stories and Ten Poems, due to come out in a few months from McAlmon’s new Contact Press. Bryher’s family money is supporting that too.

But that’s an investment. Bob thinks he might make some money out of the books some day. But certainly not out of the bullfights.

Bob McAlmon, left, and his new BFF Ernest Hemingway at the bullfight in Madrid, 1923

This year, we’ll be telling stories about these groups of ‘such friends,’ before, during and after their times together.

Manager as Muse explores Scribner’s editor Maxwell Perkins’ work with F. Scott Fitzgerald, Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe, available on Amazon in both print and Kindle versions.

To walk with the ‘Such Friends’ through Bloomsbury, download the Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Group audio walking tour from VoiceMap. Look for our upcoming walking tour about the Paris ‘such friends.’