“Such Friends”: 100 Years Ago, September 30, 1923, Courier-Journal, Louisville, Kentucky; and 412 West 47th Street, New York City, New York

Today’s Louisville Courier-Journal publishes a feature titled, “What a ‘Flapper Novelist’ Thinks of His Wife,’ with this photo and caption:

“Scott Fitzgerald, Creator of Modern Girl Types in Current Fiction, Interviews His Own Bride in the Intimacy of Their Happy Long Island Home.“

Said wife, Zelda Fitzgerald, 23, remembers that day well. The reporter had come to their home in Great Neck to interview her, Zelda. Not her novelist husband.

Zelda made sure to dress in her best country-club duds and positioned herself in their living room. The reporter was asking stupid questions:  What was it like to be the “heroine of her husband’s books?” Was being “the living prototype” of the liberated American flapper fun?

Zelda just looked at him and said,

I like to write.”

Not knowing how to respond to this, and, unable to come up with any more questions, she and the reporter called on Scott, just turned 27, to join them. He took over the interview and started lobbing questions at his wife: 

What would you do if you had to earn your own living?”

Zelda looked at Scott seriously. She had taken ballet lessons for years and used to be a dancer, she said. She could maybe join up with one of the Broadway Follies. If not, her next choice would be to act in movies. But if that didn’t work, Zelda said,

I’d try to write.”

Fitzgerald thought that was stupid. The reporter had run out of questions, so said his good-byes and left.

*****

Meanwhile, about 20 miles away from the Fitzgeralds in Great Neck, back at the housewarming party in midtown Manhattan, hostess Jane Grant, 31, is glad that one of their tenants, Herald columnist Alexander Woollcott, 36, hasn’t sabotaged the whole event because he is angry about the guest list.

Woollcott said he would spend this day in New Jersey, boycotting the celebration they’ve all been planning for months. Their fellow Algonquin Hotel lunch buddies, Robert Benchley, 34, Marc Connelly, 32, and Robert Sherwood, 27, all assured Grant that Alex would probably just show up anyway.

Sure enough. Here he is.

Marches in. Looks over the crowd and says,

I seem to see only second-rate wits.”

Fills a plate with food and announces,

I’m going to my own quarters.”

Pounds up the steps with his fans—including actresses Margalo Gilmore, 26, and Ruth Gordon, also 26—and locks his apartment door behind them.

One by one, each eventually comes sneaking back out, lured by the festivities. They shout and jeer and heckle the performers.

By early morning, Woollcott is downstairs with the rest of the hangers-on. Pretending as if nothing had happened.

Alexander Woollcott at 412 West 47^th Street

“Such Friends”:  100 Years Ago… is the basis for the paperback series, “Such Friends”:  The Literary 1920s. Volumes I through IV, covering 1920 through 1923 are available at Thoor Ballylee in Co. Galway, at Pan Yan Bookstore in Tiffin, OH, 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.

This fall I will be talking about the women of Bloomsbury and the Left Bank at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Carnegie-Mellon University, and about art collector John Quinn at the Tiffin-Seneca Public Library, co-sponsored by the Heidelberg University English Department, in Quinn’s hometown of Tiffin, OH.

Manager as Muse, about Scribner’s editor Maxwell Perkins’ relationships with Fitzgerald, Ernest 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, late September 1923, 412 West 47th Street, New York City, New York

Months of planning, months of disagreements, months of hype–all come down to this Sunday.

New York Times reporter Jane Grant, 31, and her husband, American Legion Weekly editor Harold Ross, 30, bought this house in Hell’s Kitchen well over a year ago, but the housewarming is finally going to happen this weekend.

412 West 47^th Street

Their plan from the beginning was to completely remodel the building to include separate apartments with paying tenants. They tried to keep this a secret from their Algonquin Hotel lunch buddy, formerly drama critic of the Times, now columnist of the Herald, Alexander Woollcott, 36. But as soon as he heard he elbowed his way into the plans and one of the apartments.

Alex had wanted a big housewarming for last Christmas, but that was prevented by delays in the renovations. Come spring, everyone got sick and Jane had to take care of them.

Alex’s new Herald job gives him four summer months off to be bored, so he started thinking up ideas for this spectacular housewarming. When Jane would be working at home in the mornings, he would plop himself down next to her—the way they used to chat when they were office mates at the Times—and list possibilities for the entertainment:  Robert Benchley, 34, can do his “Treasurer’s Report” monologue from the Music Box Revue—or maybe a different one they’re not all sick of hearing. Life magazine editor Robert Sherwood, 27, can sing his Red Robin song. Playwrights Marc Connelly, 32, and George S Kaufman, 33, have been talking about doing a skit about their friends in their poker club, the Thanatopsis Literary and Inside Straight Society. Woollcott will help them if they’re busy. And their composer friends, George Gershwin, just turning 25, and Irving Berlin, 35, can chip in some songs that Bea Lillie, 29, can sing.

Bea Lillie

What about the food and drink? Alex wants a buffet of hams, turkeys, potato salad, hot baked beans, ice cream and chocolate cake. None of that fancy, healthy stuff Jane keeps trying to get him to eat. Jane is in charge of ordering from their bootleggers.

To keep people moving around, games will be set up in the different apartments. Backgammon and cribbage in the digs of Alex’s friends who are renting the two top floor apartments. The pool table will fit in one of the rooms of Alex’s college buddy, real estate developer Hawley Truax, 36. Woollcott’s apartment can host roulette and everyone’s current favorite game chemin de fer. Ross and Grant’s room can be open; same for the community room and the garden, strung with Chinese lanterns.

Then they had to decide when to hold the celebration. They agreed on a Sunday so as not to conflict with the weekend parties of publisher Herbert Bayard Swope, 41, out on Long Island. Grant wanted to start things off with brunch at noon. Woollcott insisted on a night-owl time. They compromised on 9 pm.

Eventually they were able to print this invitation:

Hear Ye!

Come and see the Gash House [Alex’s current name for 412]

at 9 o’clock

Sunday, September 30^th

Entertainment & Refreshments

Guides will conduct you from Times Square

to 412 West 47^th Street”

Their friend, would-be playwright Charles MacArthur, 27, went around handing out most of the 200 they had printed to neighbors and people on the street! He apologized and agreed to chip in with writer Dorothy Parker, 30, to rent a street carousel. That will keep the young neighborhood hooligans occupied.

Street carousel

But then came the discussion of the guest list. Jane wanted to invite her co-workers from the Times; buddies from her days in show business; Ross’ old friends, of course; and conservative couples whom they can still have a polite conversation with.

But no. Alex insisted on his list of friends. Only. He wouldn’t even agree to limit it to those who were mutual friends of all parties.

In a fit of pique, Alex has announced at lunch at the Algonquin that he won’t even be in town this weekend. He’s going to visit his sister in New Jersey.

So there.

Alexander Woollcott and Jane Grant in France during the Great War

“Such Friends”:  100 Years Ago… is the basis for the paperback series, “Such Friends”:  The Literary 1920s. Volumes I through IV, covering 1920 through 1923 are available at Thoor Ballylee in Co. Galway, at Pan Yan Bookstore in Tiffin, OH, 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.

This fall I will be talking about the women of Bloomsbury and the Left Bank at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Carnegie-Mellon University, and about art collector John Quinn at the Tiffin-Seneca Public Library, co-sponsored by the Heidelberg University English Department, in Quinn’s hometown of Tiffin, OH.

Manager as Muse, about Scribner’s editor Maxwell Perkins’ relationships with F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest 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, late September, 1923, 65 Boulevard Arago, Croulebarbe, Paris

She’s glad she decided to keep a diary.

Mrs. Jeanne Foster, 44, is serving as social secretary to her…er, really good friend, American lawyer and art collector, John Quinn, 53, on his latest trip through Europe.

John Quinn and Mrs. Jeanne Foster on their European trip

A lucrative corporate case he is working on requires Quinn to take depositions from people in Paris, and he welcomed the opportunity to meet up again with his avant-garde artist friends. Quinn recently unloaded a lot of his paintings by English artists and is now focusing on his love for the French.

Mrs. Foster arrived before him to make arrangements and set up appointments. They’ve met American ex-pat poet Ezra Pound, 37, and his wife; they are looking forward to a dinner cooked by Romanian sculptor Constantin Brancusi, 47, one of Quinn’s favorites. Jeanne is recording all of their visits to studios and art galleries, as well as other meetings with interesting people.

Today they are here at the home of English writer Ford Madox Ford, 49, to talk about the new literary magazine he is planning, along the lines of the English Review which he edited back in the UK. Quinn is helping with some of the much-needed funding, and Mrs. Foster will serve as American editor. Ford, whose surname was Hueffer before the Great War, plans to run the publication from here, his brother’s apartment which he shares with his Australian common-law wife, painter Stella Bowen, 30, and their daughter Julia, age three.

65 Boulevard Arago

Before Quinn arrived in Paris, Jeanne had spoken to Ford to prepare him for the visit. John has been out-of-sorts lately, and, although he is excited about this Paris trip, he is in great pain from internal stomach problems.

Jeanne discussed with Ford one of the recent incidents which is contributing to Quinn’s foul moods—the New York visit this summer of one of the writers he generously supports, Joseph Conrad, 65. Quinn had been eager to get together with Conrad, but the Polish-British novelist totally ignored his benefactor’s phone calls and requests for a meeting. While being seen all over town partying with the literati.

Ford is friends with Conrad and had spoken to him about Quinn. Conrad had been told that Quinn had a violent temper, and, as Conrad was not feeling well himself, decided to just avoid him. He has regretted this since.

Mrs. Foster asked Ford not to bring this up when he meets with Quinn, as it will only upset him. But she keeps detailed notes of her conversation with Ford in her diary.

*****

Ford, Stella and Julia had arrived in Paris at the beginning of September. He had been here at the end of last year, but just for about a month, so was eager to come back and work on the magazine which his friend, Ezra Pound had proposed. They thought of calling it Paris Review but have decided on the name transatlantic review.

Stella is a skilled hostess at the parties she and Ford throw at the apartment. The first one they gave was for the ex-pats who spend their time on the rue de l’Odeon, including Sylvia Beach, 36, the owner of the popular English-language bookstore there, Shakespeare and Company. There was accordion music, a variety of cheeses and lots of wine.

Ford Madox Ford

Great, big, walrus-like Ford had kicked off his shoes and instructed Sylvia to do the same so they could dance. While Ford was bouncing and prancing with Sylvia, she looked across the room and saw her friend, Irish writer James Joyce, 41, looking on with great amusement.

Beach is making good use of Ford’s literary connections. She keeps urging him to write positive reviews of Joyce’s novel which Shakespeare and Company published last year, Ulysses, to overcome the bad press Joyce has been getting in England. In return, she has introduced Ford to the creative people of the Left Bank, and also listens to Ford drone on, reading her his latest poetry. Sylvia confesses she nodded off during one of these recitals. She suspects Ford wants her to publish his writings, but he’s never asked.

“Such Friends”:  100 Years Ago… is the basis for the paperback series, “Such Friends”:  The Literary 1920s. Volumes I through IV, covering 1920 through 1923 are available at Thoor Ballylee in Co. Galway, at Pan Yan Bookstore in Tiffin, OH, 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.

This fall I will be talking about the women of Bloomsbury and the Left Bank at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Carnegie-Mellon University, and about art collector John Quinn at the Tiffin-Seneca Public Library, co-sponsored by the Heidelberg University English Department, in Quinn’s hometown of Tiffin, OH.

Manager as Muse, about Scribner’s editor Maxwell Perkins’ relationships with F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest 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, September 19, 1923, New York City, New York

Edition published by 10 of the New York newspapers whose pressmen are on strike

On the first day of the strike by the local chapter of the International Union of Printing Pressman and Their Assistants, a morning newspaper appears—on sale for 5 cents instead of the usual 3 cents—created by workers at 10 of the newspapers affected by the strike. One front page story includes a statement from the International’s president telling the local to send its members back to work or they will be replaced as it is an “outlaw” strike.

“Such Friends”:  100 Years Ago… is the basis for the paperback series, “Such Friends”:  The Literary 1920s. Volumes I through IV, covering 1920 through 1923 are available at Thoor Ballylee in Co. Galway, at Pan Yan Bookstore in Tiffin, OH, 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.

This fall I will be talking about the women of Bloomsbury and the Left Bank at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Carnegie-Mellon University, and about art collector John Quinn at the Tiffin-Seneca Public Library, co-sponsored by the Heidelberg University English Department, in Quinn’s hometown of Tiffin, OH.

Manager as Muse, about Scribner’s editor Maxwell Perkins’ relationships with F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest 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, September 14, 1923, Selby Hotel, Sherbourne Street; Toronto Star offices, Adelaide Street West, Toronto

They arrived in Toronto a few days ago, and Hadley, 31, has decided that this is a great time to write to her husband’s parents in Oak Park, Illinois, and tell them that “a small, new Hemingway” is on the way.

Selby Hotel

When Hadley first discovered that she was pregnant, she knew she did not want to give birth in Paris, where they have been living for almost two years now. Her husband Ernest, 24, is the European correspondent for the Toronto Star. He didn’t want to leave Paris, where he is really making a name for himself as a writer among the small publishers on the Left Bank.

Hadley won this round. She convinced Ernie that their baby—they’re sure it’s a boy; due in October or November—should be born in North America.

So Ernie is still working for the Star, but in their offices now. Everyone has been so helpful, Hadley writes to her in-laws. One friend found her a doctor; another is taking Ernest fishing this weekend.

The Star people are so keen about your son,”

she writes to the Hemingways.

Ernest Hemingway’s parents one year after their marriage

*****

Several blocks away, closer to the Bayfront, Ernest is wondering if he is going to last a whole year here. “The First Year of the Baby,” as he calls it.

Ernie has always wanted to work for a newspaper, but not just sitting in an office.

On his first day, last Monday, they did send him out to cover a big prison break. He wrote a terrific piece which made it to the front page—but with no byline.

The city editor, Harry C. Hindmarsh, 36, decided against Ernest before he even arrived. Harry saw the new kid as a special project of his hated boss, the managing editor. Technically, Hindmarsh is lower on the totem pole. However—he’s married to the daughter of the owner and editor, “Holy Joe” Atkinson, 58. It’s clear who is going to win this round.

Ernie is thinking he’ll write to some of their Paris friends to see if they can find an apartment for the new family to come back to right after the first of the year. If he can last that long.

Toronto Star offices, Adelaide Street West

“Such Friends”:  100 Years Ago… is the basis for the series, “Such Friends”:  The Literary 1920s. Volumes I through IV, covering 1920 through 1923 are available at Thoor Ballylee in Co. Galway, at Pan Yan Bookstore in Tiffin, OH, 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.

This fall I will be talking about the women of Bloomsbury and the Left Bank at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Carnegie-Mellon University, and about art collector John Quinn at the Tiffin-Seneca Public Library, co-sponsored by the Heidelberg University English Department, in Quinn’s hometown of Tiffin, OH.

Manager as Muse, about Scribner’s editor Maxwell Perkins’ relationships with Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, 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, September 12, 1923, Hogarth House, Richmond, London

Now this is something he is really proud of.

Leonard Woolf, 42, co-owner of the Hogarth Press with his wife, novelist Virginia, 41, has been pleased with all the titles they have published over the past six years. But this latest, The Waste Land, an epic poem by their friend, American ex-pat Thomas Stearns Eliot, 34, has been a real challenge.

The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot, published by the Hogarth Press

Virginia handset the type, and Tom had extremely specific ideas about the spacing of the lines. Plus detailed footnotes. At one point this summer, the 12-point type got mixed in with the 14-point. That set them back at least a week. They used beautiful, blue-marbled boards for the inside covers, and Leonard did the actual printing.

Hogarth Press printing press

Virginia used the text from the original appearance of the poem in the first issue of Eliot’s own magazine, Criterion, almost a year earlier. The footnotes she had to copy out of the first book version, published by Boni and Liveright in the States the previous December.

The Woolfs’ subscription strategy—where A-list members pay an annual fee to get first dibs on new titles, and B-list members receive preference after that—is paying off. They’ve already pre-sold 47 copies of The Waste Land out of the 460 they’ve printed.

Virginia and Leonard agreed from the beginning that the content of the books they publish will always be of paramount importance. They don’t want Hogarth to be a specialty publisher that turns out works of art to be admired but never read.

But when the content and the production work together like this, it is something to be proud of.

“Such Friends”:  100 Years Ago… is the basis for the series, “Such Friends”:  The Literary 1920s. Volumes I through IV, covering 1920 through 1923 are available at Thoor Ballylee in Co. Galway, at Pan Yan Bookstore in Tiffin, OH, 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.

This fall I will be talking about the women of Bloomsbury and the Left Bank at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Carnegie-Mellon University, and about art collector John Quinn at the Tiffin-Seneca Public Library, co-sponsored by the Heidelberg University English Department, in Quinn’s hometown of Tiffin, OH.

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

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

“Such Friends”: 100 Years Ago, September 7, 1923, Atlantic City, New Jersey

Miss America again, Mary Katherine Campbell

Competing against 74 other women from 36 states, Miss Columbus, Mary Katherine Campbell, 18 (or so she says), is—again—crowned the winner of the Miss America pageant, sponsored by the Atlantic City Businessmen’s League to increase business on the Boardwalk.

“Such Friends”:  100 Years Ago… is the basis for the series, “Such Friends”:  The Literary 1920s. Volumes I through IV, covering 1920 through 1923 are available at Thoor Ballylee in Co. Galway, at Pan Yan Bookstore in Tiffin, OH, 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.

This fall I will be talking about the women of Bloomsbury and the Left Bank at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Carnegie-Mellon University, and about art collector John Quinn at the Tiffin-Seneca Public Library, co-sponsored by the Heidelberg University English Department, in Quinn’s hometown of Tiffin, OH.

Manager as Muse, about Scribner’s editor Maxwell Perkins’ relationships with F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest 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, September 4, 1923, the Duke of York’s Theatre, St. Martin’s Lane, West End, London

It’s opening night of London Calling!, the musical revue named after the BBC’s call sign for its 10-month-old radio station, 2LO.

This is the first musical production for the show’s writer and composer, Noel Coward, 23.

Coward had great success with a play earlier this year, which gained him a lot of young fans who would shout out,

“That’s a Noelism!”

when they heard his best lines.

But this is his first West End musical. And it’s also a new experience for his co-star, Gertrude Lawrence, 25, whom he’s known since they appeared on stage in Liverpool together, when they were just teenagers.

Noel Coward and Gertrude Lawrence in London Calling!

Gertrude has been a big success on the London stage, but she’s never had to sing before.

Coward has written all the music and lyrics, except for their last duet, “You Were Meant for Me,” by two African-American musicians, Noble Sissle, 34, and Eubie Blake, 36.

Noel has been taking dancing lessons from another American, Fred Astaire, 24, who is appearing up the street at the Shaftesbury Theatre, with his sister Adele, about to turn 27.

There are 25 skits and song and dance numbers in London Calling!. Coward has written one sketch called “The Swiss Family Whittlebot,” making fun of a ridiculous musical performance he saw the poet Edith Sitwell, 35, give in the spring. Her whole family are a bunch of pretentious toffs.

The audience is getting ready by donning the tinted glasses they need to wear to see the opening act which employs a new 3-D stereoscopic shadowgraph process. It’s been used at the Ziegfeld Follies on Broadway, but this is its European debut.

Stereoscope glasses with test images

Coward is a bit nervous about the competition. Up the street at the Winter Garden tomorrow night is the premiere of The Beauty Prize, co-written by popular English author P. G. Wodehouse, 41, with music by American Jerome Kern, 38. Those two had a big hit in the West End last year.

The Beauty Prize program

Coward is hoping his “Noelisms” will bring in the crowds.

Curtain going up!

“Such Friends”:  100 Years Ago… is the basis for the paperback series, “Such Friends”:  The Literary 1920s. Volumes I through IV, covering 1920 through 1923 are available at Thoor Ballylee in Co. Galway, , at Pan Yan Bookstore in Tiffin, OH, 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.

This fall I will be talking about the women of Bloomsbury and the Left Bank at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Carnegie-Mellon University, and about art collector John Quinn at the Tiffin-Seneca Public Library, co-sponsored by the Heidelberg University English Department, in Quinn’s hometown of Tiffin, OH.

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

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