“Such Friends”: 100 Years Ago, late May, 1923, en route from Paris to Madrid

This happy troupe of ex-pat Americans is making their way from their homes in Paris to see their first bullfights in Spain.

Bill Bird, 35, from Buffalo, New York, started his own small company last year, Three Mountains Press, in offices on quai d’Anjou on the Ile Saint Louis. He handprints his own books as well as those written by his Left Bank friends. Bird also lends his office space to other publishers, such as…

Ile Saint Louis

Robert McAlmon, 28, from Clifton, Kansas, who recently started the Contact Press, using his wealthy British father-in-law’s money and the name from a magazine he founded in Greenwich Village a few years ago. Before leaving on this trip, McAlmon sent out an announcement that Contact Press is soliciting unpublished manuscripts. He has been inundated with work, both from writers he specifically targeted—Gertrude Stein, 49, Ezra Pound, 37, James Joyce, 41, Wyndham Lewis, 40 (only Wyndham turned him down)—and others he’s never heard of.

In his upcoming Contact Collection of Contemporary Writers, McAlmon plans to include the best work. He is also thinking of publishing a separate book with just stories and poems by one of his fellow travelers….

Ernest Hemingway, 23, from Oak Park, Illinois.

Robert McAlmon and Ernest Hemingway

As the European correspondent for the Toronto Star, Hemingway has been traveling all over Europe filing stories. He really needs this break from cold, rainy Paris. Ernest and his wife Hadley, 31, had planned to go to Norway for the excellent trout fishing. But his friend Stein and her partner, Alice B. Toklas, 46, convinced Hemingway to go see the Spanish bullfights, and pregnant Hadley decided to stay in Paris. Stein and Toklas were quite enthusiastic. Ernest has also gotten some travel tips from other friends about where to go and where to eat.

The train has stopped. They all look out the windows to see what the problem is and catch sight of a dead dog on the side of the track.

McAlmon instinctively looks away. Hemingway scolds him for trying to avoid reality.

“Such Friends”:  100 Years Ago… is the basis for the series, “Such Friends”:  The Literary 1920s. Volumes I through III, covering 1920 through 1922 are available at Thoor Ballylee in Co. Galway, and as signed copies at Riverstone Books in Squirrel Hill, Pittsburgh, PA. They are also on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk in print and e-book formats. For more information, email me at kaydee@gypsyteacher.com.

In June I will be talking about F. Scott Fitzgerald and Hemingway at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Carnegie-Mellon University.

Manager as Muse, about Scribner’s editor Maxwell Perkins’ relationships with Fitzgerald, Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe, is also available on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk in both print and e-book versions.

If you want to walk with me through Bloomsbury, you can download my audio walking tour, “Such Friends”:  Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Group.

“Such Friends”: 100 Years Ago, May, 1923, Cambridge, Massachusetts

Charlotte Champe Stearns Eliot, 79, teacher, social worker and mother of American poet living in London Thomas Stearns Eliot, 34, has received a letter from her brother-in-law confessing that he does not understand the latest work by young Tom, “The Waste Land.” The poem appeared last fall in the American literary magazine, The Dial, and has been causing quite a stir.

Charlotte Champe Stearns Eliot

Charlotte passes on to her brother-in-law Tom’s explanation that the poem is about losing “an ideal world” that existed, she writes, “certainly up to the time of his marriage and residence in England…Since then he has had pretty hard times,” with his wife’s illnesses and financial problems. She writes,

Under these circumstances, you can easily imagine some of his ideals are shattered.”

Although some of her poems have appeared in religious magazines, and a collection was published a bit over 20 years ago, Charlotte is still a frustrated poet herself. She has to confess to her brother-in-law that she didn’t understand “The Waste Land” the first time that she read it either.

“Such Friends”:  100 Years Ago… is the basis for the series, “Such Friends”:  The Literary 1920s. Volumes I through III, covering 1920 through 1922 are available at Thoor Ballylee in Co. Galway, and as signed copies at Riverstone Books in Squirrel Hill, Pittsburgh, PA. They are also on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk in print and e-book formats. For more information, email me at kaydee@gypsyteacher.com.

Next month I will be talking about F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Carnegie-Mellon University.

Manager as Muse, about Scribner’s editor Maxwell Perkins’ relationships with Fitzgerald, Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe, is also available on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk in both print and e-book versions.

If you want to walk with me through Bloomsbury, you can download my audio walking tour, “Such Friends”:  Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Group.

“Such Friends”: 100 Years Ago, Spring, 1923, Manhattan, New York City, New York

New employee Paul Robeson, just turning 25, feels as though he has been doing good work here at the law firm of Stotesbury and Miner, which mostly handles estates.

Paul Robeson

After being graduated from Columbia University Law School late last February, with C marks in most of his classes, Paul was just floating.

He appeared briefly in the chorus of a stupid play, Plantation Revue, designed to capitalize on the success of the recent all-Black musical Shuffle Along.

Robeson did receive a job offer from the Tammany Hall political machine, but his wife Essie, 27, was adamant that he turn it down. Not a good route to take, in Essie’s opinion.

And Essie’s opinion counts for a lot. She pushed Paul to work some connections with other alumni from Rutgers University, and Paul was asked to join this firm, headed by Louis William Stotesbury, 52. Both had lettered in football during their times at Rutgers.

Paul Robeson at Rutgers

Paul was glad for this opportunity; he is the only African-American in the office. He was asked to prepare a brief for a case involving the will for one of the wealthy Gould family members, and his version was used in the trial.

But today, he buzzed the stenographer to come in and take a memo. She stated flat out,

I never take dictation from a n*****.”

Paul walked right into the office of his mentor to complain. Mr. Stotesbury was sympathetic, but basically he told Robeson that he probably didn’t have much of a future as a lawyer anyway. Their wealthy clients weren’t prejudiced, of course. But they were worried that no judge would take their sides seriously if they were represented by a man of color. Many banks and insurance companies owned and operated by African-Americans wouldn’t even use Black lawyers.

Maybe the firm could open a branch in Harlem and Paul could be in charge of that.

Back in his own office, Robeson comes to a decision. He hands in his resignation and walks out the door. No law career for him. The Robesons will have to rely on Essie’s job as head histological chemist in Surgical Pathology at New York Presbyterian Hospital to support themselves.

“Such Friends”:  100 Years Ago… is the basis for the series, “Such Friends”:  The Literary 1920s. Volumes I through III, covering 1920 through 1922 are available at Thoor Ballylee in Co. Galway, and as signed copies at Riverstone Books in Squirrel Hill, Pittsburgh, PA. They are also on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk in print and e-book formats.

Thanks to all who came by the “Such Friends” booth at the Greater Pittsburgh Festival of Books. To receive the Festival discount on any “Such Friends” books, email me at kaydee@gypsyteacher.com.

Next month I will be talking about F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway in the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Carnegie-Mellon University.

Manager as Muse, about Scribner’s editor Maxwell Perkins’ relationships with Fitzgerald, Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe, is also available on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk in both print and e-book versions.

If you want to walk with me through Bloomsbury, you can download my audio walking tour, “Such Friends”:  Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Group.

“Such Friends”: 100 Years Ago, May 16, 1923, Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, Alpes-Maritimes, France

American financier and railroad executive George Jay Gould, 59, dies today.

He came here to the Riviera on vacation with his former mistress and second wife of only one year, Guinevere Jeanne, 38, and their three children (identified by the New York Times as “her three children”).

George Jay Gould

Gould succumbs to pneumonia, the result of a fever he contracted a few months ago after visiting the recently excavated tomb of King Tutankhamun in Egypt’s Valley of the Kings.

The financial supporter of the excavation, George Herbert, the fifth Earl of Carnarvon, died earlier this year at age 56, a few months after entering the tomb.

Coincidence? Some don’t think so.

Once again, if you’ve got the song in your head, click here.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYbavuReVF4

“Such Friends”:  100 Years Ago… is the basis for the series, “Such Friends”:  The Literary 1920s. Volumes I through III, covering 1920 through 1922 are available at Thoor Ballylee in Co. Galway, and as signed copies at Riverstone Books in Squirrel Hill, Pittsburgh, PA. They are also on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk in print and e-book formats.

Thanks to all who came by the “Such Friends” booth at the Greater Pittsburgh Festival of Books. To receive the Festival discount on any “Such Friends” books, email me at kaydee@gypsyteacher.com.

Next month I will be talking about F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Carnegie-Mellon University.

Manager as Muse, about Scribner’s editor Maxwell Perkins’ relationships with Fitzgerald, Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe, is also available on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk in both print and e-book versions.

If you want to walk with me through Bloomsbury, you can download my audio walking tour, “Such Friends”:  Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Group.

“Such Friends”: 100 Years Ago, May 13, 1923, Columbia University School of Journalism, Morningside Heights, New York City, New York

The results are in.

New York World publisher Joseph Pulitzer stipulated in his will that $2 million would go to Columbia University Journalism School with one-quarter of that to be used to establish awards in Journalism, Letters and Drama, and Education. The agreement was written to be flexible enough to allow the advisory board judges to add awards or not announce one at all in a given year.

Columbia University established the Pulitzer Prizes in 1917 and the awards for work done in 1922 were awarded today.

Pulitzer Prize medal

Selected categories:

Journalism, Public Service:

Memphis Commercial Appeal:  

For its courageous attitude in the publication of cartoons and the handling of news in reference to the operations of the Ku Klux Klan.”

Journalism, Editorial Writing:

William Allen White, 55, of the Emporia (Kansas) Gazette:  “For an editorial entitled ‘To an Anxious Friend,’” which concludes,

This nation will survive, this state will prosper, the orderly business of life will go forward if only men can speak in whatever way given them to utter what their hearts hold—by voice, by posted card, by letter, or by press. Reason has never failed men. Only force and repression have made the wrecks in the world.”

Letters and Drama, Novel:

One of Ours by Willa Cather, 49, published by Knopf, given

for an American novel published in the year, which best presents the wholesome atmosphere of American life and the highest standard of American manners and manhood.”

Letters and Drama, Poetry:

The Ballad of the Harp-Weaver by Edna St. Vincent Millay, 30, published by Harper

for a distinguished volume of original verse by an American author, published during the preceding calendar year.”

The Poetry award, worth $1,000, was only established last year, won by Edwin Arlington Robinson, 53, for Collected Poems, although three special citations had been given for books of poetry previously.

The collection by Millay is actually a reprint of some of her more popular poems, with extra sonnets added, and is the only poetry she published last year.

In reporting on the awards, the Emporia (Kansas) Gazette notes that “Edna Stovencent Millay” won the poetry prize.

Millay’s hometown paper, the Portland (Maine) Evening Express, reports, “Maine Girl Wins Pulitzer Prize for Book of Verse.”

The Ballad of the Harp Weaver by Edna St. Vincent Millay

“Such Friends”:  100 Years Ago… is the basis for the series, “Such Friends”:  The Literary 1920s. Volumes I through III, covering 1920 through 1922 are available at Thoor Ballylee in Co. Galway, and as signed copies at Riverstone Books in Squirrel Hill, Pittsburgh, PA. They are also on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk in print and e-book formats. For more information, email me at kaydee@gypsyteacher.com.

Next month I will be talking about F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Carnegie-Mellon University.

Manager as Muse, about Scribner’s editor Maxwell Perkins’ relationships with Fitzgerald, Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe, is also available on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk in both print and e-book versions.

If you want to walk with me through Bloomsbury, you can download my audio walking tour, “Such Friends”:  Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Group.

“Such Friends” at The Second Greater Pittsburgh Festival of Books

We interrupt this chronology of what was happening in the literary world 100 years ago to remind you that this Saturday, May 13^th, 2023, is the second Greater Pittsburgh Festival of Books.

And “Such Friends” will be there—at Booth No. 22 in Writers’ Row, to the left just as you come in the main entrance—with copies of all three volumes of “Such Friends”:  The Literary 1920s, covering 1920 to 1922, as well as copies of Manager as Muse:  Maxwell Perkins’ Work with F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe.

“Such Friends” volumes I through III

All books will be available at a substantial Festival discount and signed by the author. All four books are also available at regular retail price in both print and e-book format at Riverstone Books in Squirrel Hill and on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk.

For all you fans of the first three volumes, there will be a special surprise—Stay tuned!

So come to the Festival at the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary on Highland Avenue in East Liberty—admission is free with lots of parking available.

See you Saturday…

Everyone is reading “Such Friends”

Next month I will be talking about Fitzgerald and Hemingway at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Carnegie-Mellon University.

If you want to walk with me through Bloomsbury, you can download my audio walking tour, “Such Friends”:  Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Group.

“Such Friends”: 100 Years Ago, May, 1923, Hotel Beaujolais, 15 rue de Beaujolais, Paris; and 24 East 11th Street, New York City, New York

American publisher and entrepreneur Margaret Anderson, 36, has found the love of her life. Again.

For the past six years, Anderson has been partners with Jane Heap, 39, both in life and in producing the magazine The Little Review. They met in Chicago when Anderson invited Heap to join her in editing the magazine, which was designed to present the cutting edge of what is going on in literature today.

Margaret Anderson and Jane Heap

They moved The Little Review to Greenwich Village in 1917 and stayed together through their trial for daring to publish the first excerpts from Ulysses, the new novel by Irish ex-pat James Joyce, 41. They were fined $50 each for that by a Manhattan court but got off with no jail time.

But their relationship was starting to unravel even then. Margaret adored and admired Jane, but she felt she couldn’t put up with her partner’s depression and empty suicide threats anymore. Margaret was tired of the magazine. Jane wasn’t.

What brought things to a head was Margaret meeting the next love of her life, French opera singer Georgette Leblanc, 54, former partner of Belgian playwright Maurice Maeterlink, 60.

Georgette Leblanc

Margaret finally decided to leave New York City, The Little Review, and Jane Heap behind. She and Georgette have moved here to Paris, along with thousands of Americans arriving on ocean liners this month, to start a new life together. Technically, Anderson is still co-editor of The Little Review, but she is giving full responsibility to Heap, back in New York.

*****

Back in the Little Review’s Greenwich Village offices, Jane is thinking of opening a Little Review art gallery to present works by European Dadaist artists to Americans.

East 11^th Street, Greenwich Village

Heap is struggling to keep the publication going on her own. She’s added more color to the magazine, especially to its covers, but the issue planned for April probably won’t come out until fall.

This will be a special issue featuring the newest work by ex-pat writers and artists in Paris, to be called the “Exiles” issue. Heap already has lined up pieces by writer Gertrude Stein, 49, poet Edward Estin Cummings, 28, and composer George Antheil, 22.

“Such Friends”:  100 Years Ago… is the basis for the series, “Such Friends”:  The Literary 1920s. Volumes I through III, covering 1920 through 1922 are available at Thoor Ballylee in Co. Galway, and as signed copies at Riverstone Books in Squirrel Hill, Pittsburgh, PA. They are also on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk in print and e-book formats. For more information, email me at kaydee@gypsyteacher.com.

“Such Friends” will have a booth (No. 22) at the Greater Pittsburgh Festival of Books this Saturday, May 13^th, at the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary in Highland Park. Stop by and receive a special Festival discount on your purchase of any “Such Friends” books!

This summer I will be talking F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Carnegie-Mellon University.

Manager as Muse, about Scribner’s editor Maxwell Perkins’ relationships with Fitzgerald, Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe, is also available on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk in both print and e-book versions.

If you want to walk with me through Bloomsbury, you can download my audio walking tour, “Such Friends”:  Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Group.

“Such Friends”: 100 Years Ago, early May, 1923, Souther Field, Americus, Georgia

He feels as though he’s ready.

Amateur pilot Charles Lindbergh, 21, who came to this former Army flight-training field to retrieve the plane he just bought (with the help of $500 of his Dad’s money), thinks he’s ready to take off.

Charles Lindbergh with flying friend

Lindbergh did some flying last year after dropping out of college, but then took six months off to help his Dad, a former Minnesota Congressman, with his Senate campaign. (He lost.)

Some locals helped Lindbergh assemble the war surplus Curtiss JN-4 “Jenny” biplane from the kit in a big box. After only 30 minutes flying with an experienced pilot who happened to be visiting the field, Lindbergh immediately took his first solo flight in the plane he now owns. He has spent the rest of this week practicing, racking up five hours of “pilot in command” time. So, he’s ready.

Curtiss JN-4 biplane, known as a “Jenny”

Today he’s taking off for Montgomery, Alabama, and plans to spend the next year or so with barnstorming teams around the U. S., performing as “Daredevil Lindbergh.”

“Such Friends”:  100 Years Ago… is the basis for the series, “Such Friends”:  The Literary 1920s. Volumes I through III, covering 1920 through 1922 are available at Thoor Ballylee in Co. Galway, and as signed copies at Riverstone Books in Squirrel Hill, Pittsburgh, PA. They are also on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk in print and e-book formats. For more information, email me at kaydee@gypsyteacher.com.

“Such Friends” will have a booth at the Greater Pittsburgh Festival of Books on Saturday, May 13^th, at the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary in Highland Park. Stop by and receive a special Festival discount on your purchase of any “Such Friends” books!

This summer I will be talking about F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at at Carnegie-Mellon University.

Manager as Muse, about Scribner’s editor Maxwell Perkins’ relationships with Fitzgerald, Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe, is also available on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk in both print and e-book versions.

If you want to walk with me through Bloomsbury, you can download my audio walking tour, “Such Friends”:  Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Group.

“Such Friends”: 100 Years Ago, May 2, 1923, Toronto Daily Star, Toronto

The Toronto Star’s European correspondent, American ex-pat Ernest Hemingway, 23, has been traveling and sending back reports about the current state of Europe. Today, the paper runs his piece about the difficulties of getting into Germany:

German embassy in Paris

Offenburg, Baden—In Paris they said it was very difficult to get into Germany. No tourists allowed. No newspaper men wanted. The German consulate will not visa a passport without a letter from a consulate or chamber of commerce in Germany saying, under a seal, it is necessary for the traveler to come to Germany for a definite business transaction…

“’We must preserve the utmost strictness,’ said the German consul and reluctantly and suspiciously after much consultation of files gave me a visa good for three weeks.

“’How do we know you will not write lies about Germany?,’ he said before he handed me back the passport.

“’Oh, cheer up,’ I said…

“Germany did not look very cheerful…”

Ernest Hemingway’s passport

Hemingway has to take a train and a tram through Strasbourg, France, to catch a military train to Offenberg. After he crosses the border into Germany, he stops at a hotel buffet and talks to one of the waiters, who tells him,

All the people you say you saw in July cannot come now. The French will not give them passports to come into Germany…All our factories here are shut down. No coal. No trains. This was one of the biggest and busiest stations in Germany. Now nix…We haven’t had any fun since 1914…’

“I looked up at the wall where the prices were:

Beer,                           350 marks a glass

Red wine,                    500 marks a glass

Sandwich,                   900 marks

Lunch,                         3,500 marks

Champagne,                38,000 marks

“I remembered that last July I stayed at a de luxe hotel with Mrs. Hemingway for 600 marks a day.

“’Sure,’ the waiter went on, ‘I read the French papers. Germany debases her money to cheat the allies. But what do I get out of it?’”

Ernest and Hadley Hemingway in Germany

“Such Friends”:  100 Years Ago… is the basis for the series, “Such Friends”:  The Literary 1920s. Volumes I through III, covering 1920 through 1922 are available at Thoor Ballylee in Co. Galway, and as signed copies at Riverstone Books in Squirrel Hill, Pittsburgh, PA. They are also on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk in print and e-book formats. For more information, email me at kaydee@gypsyteacher.com.

“Such Friends” will have a booth at the Greater Pittsburgh Festival of Books on Saturday, May 13^th, at the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary in Highland Park. Stop by and receive a special Festival discount on your purchase of any “Such Friends” books!

In June I will be talking about F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Carnegie-Mellon University.

Manager as Muse, about Scribner’s editor Maxwell Perkins’ relationships with Fitzgerald, Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe, is also available on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk in both print and e-book versions.

If you want to walk with me through Bloomsbury, you can download my audio walking tour, “Such Friends”:  Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Group.