At this year’s third annual Greater Pittsburgh Festival of Books we will celebrate the launch of the fifth volume in the series, “Such Friends”: The Literary 1920s. Halfway through the decade!
Volume V, covering 1924, continues to chronicle the private and professional lives of the key figures in the literary world in the fabulous decade of the 1920s.
“Such Friends”: The Literary 1920s, Volume V—1924
You can see how the year ends before the postings on this blog get there!
Like the other four volumes—all available on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk—Volume V has a unique dip-in-and-dip-out layout, designed by Lisa Thomson (LisaT2@comcast.net), that makes it easy to find the writers, artists, events and dates you’re most interested in. Find out what Ernest Hemingway was doing 100 years ago on your birth date! What was Virginia Woolf doing this week?! Or read straight through from January 1st through December 31st.
The unique layout of “Such Friends”: The Literary 1920s
Copies of the first four volumes will be available at the “Such Friends” booth in Writer’s Row at the Festival. Not only can you take advantage of the Festival discount—I’m happy to personally sign your copies!
Thanks to Amazon’s crack delivery system, you will also be able to enter the “Such Friends” raffle to win a free copy of the new “Such Friends”: The Literary 1920s, Volume V—1924, when they finally arrive, shortly after the Festival.
If you can’t make it to Highland Park next Saturday between 10 am and 5 pm, or just can’t wait that long, you can order your copies of all five volumes now from Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk, or by emailing me at kaydee@gypsyteacher.com.
See you at the Festival!
“Such Friends” at last year’s Greater Pittsburgh Festival of Books
This summer I will be talking about the literary 1920s in Paris and New York at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Carnegie-Mellon University.
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.
We interrupt this chronicle of what was happening 100 years ago in the literary and cultural world to look forward to what will be happening next month in the literary and cultural world of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
It can’t possibly rain as much as it did last year, so plan to stop by on Saturday, May 11, at the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary on Highland Avenue in Highland Park, conveniently located a few blocks from “Such Friends” global headquarters. We will be there once again all day at our table on Writers’ Row.
“Such Friends” at the Greater Pittsburgh Festival of Books last year
Of course, there will be plenty of copies of the first four volumes in the paperback series, “Such Friends”: The Literary 1920s, covering 1920 through 1923, available at a special Festival discount price. I’ll even sign them!
But, in addition—wait for it—if the Amazon gods smile on us—there will also be copies of Volume V, 1924, available, at a discount and signed. Be the first to get yours!
The layout of all five volumes makes it easy to dip and out or read straight through a year from January 1st through December 31st. And remember, they make great gifts!
Dip in and out layout of “Such Friends”: The Literary 1920s
We hope to see you on the 11th to sign your copy of “Such Friends.”!
This summer I will be talking about the literary 1920s in Paris and New York at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Carnegie-Mellon University.
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.
We interrupt our chronicling of what was happening 100 years ago in the literary and artistic worlds to bring you an update on activities here in “Such Friends” central.
Thanks to such-a-friend Arlan Hess, owner of City Books Pittsburgh, Gertrude Stein finally had her day in the town where she was born. On Saturday, February 3rd, City Books and the nearby Hugh Lane Wellness Foundation hosted a 150th birthday party for Gertrude.
Your blog host at Gertrude Stein’s house
Proclamations from the County, the City and the office of Mayor Ed Gainey were issued and suitably proclaimed. (All these great photos of Gertrude Stein Day are by Lauryn Halahurich/Those in Motion.)
Proclaimers with proclamations
Three different groups of ardent fans joined me to walk around the corner to the Stein family home, at 842 Beech Avenue (there’s a plaque), and hear me pontificate about Stein’s six-month stay in Allegheny, PA, which is now part of Pittsburgh.
Your blog host pontificating to ardent fans
Back in the shop, we all enjoyed rose-covered petit fours and rose-colored macaroons.
Thank you, Arlan!
Masked shop owner Arlan Hess with your masked blog host
Of course, I was happy to sign copies of all four volumes of “Such Friends”: The Literary 1920s, covering 1920 through 1923. There are still some signed copies available at City Books. Stop by Galveston Avenue and say hi to Arlan!
*****
In addition, testimonials keep pouring in from friends and strangers alike about how much they enjoy all four volumes of the “Such Friends” series. (If they are not available in your local bookstore, tell them to contact me at kaydee@gypsyteacher.com. We’ll make them available.)
A judge in the Writer’s Digest Self-Published Book Competition, ranking Volume I “exemplary” in four categories, commented,
delightful, quick read…several great stories about Black artists like [Langston] Hughes and [Paul] Robeson…I enjoyed working my way through the year with these writers and other artists…The historical and cultural context (“Pinkolic Soap” advertisement) add a lot of color. The formatting of the text and layout of the pages are extremely effective…I enjoyed the many photographs and other historical documents.”
The extremely effective text and layout of “Such Friends”: The Literary 1920s
Scott, an Ernest Hemingway fan says,
Love the whole concept of your project, capturing and chronicling the 1920s literary scene. Again, job well done!”
a fascinating insight into connections between figures in the literary world of the very early 1920s. I look forward to ordering more!…PS I love the way you state the age of all individuals, as knowing how old significant people were at various stages in their professional and private lives provides important context for me. Thank you!”
excellent job!…I’ve been saving the book for a winter day, and we’ve had that, so took advantage of gray cool weather & warm pups. Didn’t gulp it down; savored it like…good popcorn. with maybe a cold beer.”
And Julian, former grad student fan, says
an amazing literary chronicle with a surprise historical treat around every corner.’
So get your copies of all four volumes of “Such Friends”: The Literary 1920s from your local bookstore now, or break down and order from Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk.
First four volumes of “Such Friends”: The Literary 1920s
P. S. “Such Friends”: The Literary 1920s, Volume V—1924, is written and in production. We’re halfway through the decade!
Later this month I will be talking about early 20th century supporters of the arts like the Stein family at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Carnegie-Mellon University.
Manager as Muse, about Scribner’s editor Maxwell Perkins’ relationships with F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe is also available Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk in both print and e-book versions.
The Stein family welcomes their fifth child, Gertrude, to their comfortable middle-class home here in Allegheny, adjacent to the industrial powerhouse of the Steel City, Pittsburgh.
The author in front of the Stein house with plaque
In honor of Gertrude’s 150th birthday—proclaimed Gertrude Stein Day by the City of Pittsburgh—we’re having a party!
Join us at City Books, 908 Galveston Avenue, just a few short blocks away from Gertrude’s house, on Saturday, February 3, from noon to 4 pm. There will be “little cakes”—like the ones Gertrude’s partner, Alice B. Toklas, served at their salons in Paris—and your humble blog host may be persuaded to make a few remarks and answer questions.
City Books
If weather permits, we can walk over to Beech Avenue and toast one of Pittsburgh’s most famous daughters.
Conveniently, copies of all four volumes of my series, “Such Friends”: The Literary 1920s, covering 1920 through 1923. will be for sale, and I’m happy to sign them.
“Such Friends”: The Literary 1920s, Volumes I through IV
When Gertrude was born, her father, Daniel, about 30, owned a shop with his brother, called, of course, Stein Brothers, in downtown Pittsburgh at Fourth Avenue and Wood Street.
The brothers’ families lived side by side in identical houses on Beech Avenue. Unfortunately, Gertrude’s Mom, Amelia, 31, didn’t get along so well with her sister-in-law next door.
So when their newborn was only six months old, Daniel, Amelia and their five kids left Pittsburgh and took off for a tour around Europe, never to return to Pennsylvania.
The Stein family in later years
Gertrude was only with us for six months, but we ‘burghers are extremely proud. Come by City Books on February 3rd between 1 and 4 p.m. and help us celebrate her 150th!
Later next month I will be talking about early 20th century supporters of the arts like the Stein family at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Carnegie-Mellon University.
Manager as Muse, about Scribner’s editor Maxwell Perkins’ relationships with F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe is available directly from me at kaydee@gypsyteacher.com.
“Such Friends” once again interrupts its usual chronology of what was happening in the literary world 100 years ago with the solution to your holiday gift giving problems.
What to get for those bookish friends? You know they are fans of Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Woolf—even Gertrude Stein. But what have they read and what haven’t they read?
Betcha they haven’t read this!
“Such Friends”: The Literary 1920s, Volumes I through IV
The four volumes of “Such Friends”: The Literary 1920s, covering 1920 through 1923, contain fascinating vignettes about the personal lives of the literary characters throughout this decade.
The easy-to-read layout means you can dip in and out of any volume or sit down and read it straight through from January 1 to December 31.
Sample pages from “Such Friends”: The Literary 1920s, Volumes I through IV
Can’t decide which volume to start with? Choose Volume I, covering 1920—think of it as your entry into the network.
But wait! Amazon can’t get it to you on time?! Shame on them!
If you’re of the European persuasion, head on over to Thoor Ballylee, W. B. Yeats’ tower in Co. Galway, and pick up some copies in the bookshop.
And if none of those options work for you, email me at kaydee@gypsyteacher.com. I can send out copies from our vast inventory through the local post office, or, if you live on a Pittsburgh Regional Transit route, hand deliver signed copies in person.
Everyone’s reading “Such Friends”
So one way or another, make “Such Friends” part of your gift giving this year.
Happy holidays!
Early in the new year I will be talking about the literary summer of 1923 in the Osher Lifelong Learning program at the University of Pittsburgh, and early 20th century supporters of the arts at the Osher program at Carnegie-Mellon University.
Another gift for your bookish friends, 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 or Amazon.co.uk in both print and e-book versions.
We interrupt this chronology of what was happening in the literary world in the 1920s for a bit of Shameless Self Promotion for “Such Friends”: The Literary 1920s.
Do you or someone you know live in or near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania? Lucky you! (Go Steelers!)
This weekend, Friday, October 13th through Sunday, October 15th, one of our many fine local independent bookstores, Riverstone Books, will be celebrating its sixth anniversary—Way to go Riverstone!
Riverstone Books merch
To mark the occasion, they have asked local authors to sign copies and chat with the fans, and your very own “such [a] friend”—me—will be at the Squirrel Hill store on Forbes Avenue, onFriday, October 13th, from 4 to 5 pm.
Come by—or send your friends—to get your copies of “Such Friends”: The Literary 1920s, Volumes I through IV, covering 1920 through 1923, signed personally by me.
And stop by during the weekend, at either the Squirrel Hill or McCandless location, to meet other local authors—Nick Courage from Littsburgh will be in Squirrel Hill from 2 to 4 pm on Saturday. And congratulate Riverstone Books on six years of service!
Later 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.
The paperback series, “Such Friends”: The Literary 1920s, based on the blogs posted here, continues with the publication today of Volume IV, covering 1923, on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk in both print and e-book formats. Signed copies will be available at Riverstone Books, Squirrel Hill in Pittsburgh, PA, next week.
1923 offers four weddings and two funerals, an Egyptian curse, and a chance to stop Adolf Hitler! What more can you ask for in one year?!
“Such Friends” at the recent Greater Pittsburgh Festival of Books
In addition, Irish poet and playwright William Butler Yeats is awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. English novelist Virginia Woolf is turning her short story, “Mrs. Dalloway in Bond Street,” into a novel. American writer Gertrude Stein, living in Paris, is getting more recognition in the States. New York freelance writer Dorothy Parker is still writing light verse but also expanding into short stories.
The format of each book in the series lets you dip in and out, follow a favorite author, or read straight through from January 1st to December 31st.
Sample pages from Volume III of “Such Friends”: The Literary 1920s
On the occasion of “Such Friends” fourth book launch, I will make the same offer I have in the past: If you live on any Pittsburgh Regional Transit bus route, I will hand-deliver your personally signed copy.
Collect all four!
“Such Friends”: The Literary 1920s, Volume IV—1923
Later this 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.
Oh no! All those bookish friends of yours couldn’t figure out that what you were really hankering for was“Such Friends”: The Literary 1920s, Volumes I through III covering 1920 through 1922!
“Such Friends”: The Literary 1920s—Volume I, 1920
Easily available in print or e-book format on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk. However, if you prefer signed copies, wander on over to Riverstone Books on Forbes Avenue in Squirrel Hill. Or contact me directly at kaydee@gypsyteacher.com.
The reason you are so keen to get your hands on all three volumes of “Such Friends” is clear from what you’ve heard people saying about it:
My wife and I were reading your Such Friends…out loud to each other and laughing a lot.”
–Cliff, Osher Lifelong Learning friend
Everyone is reading “Such Friends”:
Donnelly’s clever day-by-day organization allows her to range widely among many artists while her use of the present tense creates a sense of immediacy—’you are there.’ This book will provide great pleasure to anyone interested in figures of Modernism and of Twenties popular culture: Eliot, Joyce, Pound, Woolf, Yeats, Stein, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Parker, Benchley, et al.”
—another Kathleen, Facebook friend
Here’s an example of my clever organization:
Sample pages from “Such Friends”: The Literary 1920s
Your lovely book arrived yesterday and I’ve already devoured most of it. It’s a very clever way of dealing with so many literary giants in…their most important years. Although ideal for a popular audience there is much that I did not know (and was delighted to learn) even though I spent a wasted youth and much of my dotage studying most of them.”
—Joseph, Australian friend
And my previous offer still stands: If you are anywhere near a Pittsburgh Regional Transit bus route, I will hand-deliver your signed copies. Get in touch! kaydee@gypsyteacher.com.
Next month I will be talking about The Literary 1920s in Paris and New York City at the Osher program at Carnegie-Mellon University.
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.
In Ireland, despite living in the middle of a Civil War, and the death of his 82-year-old father this past February, poet and playwright William Butler Yeats, 57, has had a pretty good year.
He is enjoying his appointment to the newly formed Senate of the Irish Free State, engineered by his friend and family doctor, Oliver St. John Gogarty, 44, who managed to get himself appointed as well.
Irish Free State Great Seal
Much to Yeats’ surprise, the position comes with an income, making it the first paying job he has ever had. The money, as he writes to a friend,
of which I knew nothing when I accepted, will compensate me somewhat for the chance of being burned or bombed. We are a fairly distinguished body, much more so than the lower house, and should get much government into our hands…How long our war is to last nobody knows. Some expect it to end this Xmas and some equally well informed expect another three years.”
Indeed, although Senator Yeats has been provided with an armed guard at his house, two bullets were shot through the front door of his family home in Merrion Square on Christmas Eve.
82 Merrion Square
A few blocks away the Abbey Theatre, which he helped to found 18 years ago, is still doing well under the director and co-founder Lady Augusta Gregory, 70. John Bull’s Other Island, a play by his fellow Dubliner, George Bernard Shaw, 66, is being performed, starring part-time actor and full-time civil servant Barry Fitzgerald, 34.
George Bernard Shaw
Yeats has been awarded an Honorary D. Litt. From Trinity College, Dublin. He writes to a friend that this makes him feel “that I have become a personage.”
*****
In England, at Monk’s House, their country home in East Sussex, the Woolfs, Virginia, 40, and Leonard, 42, are reviewing the state of their five-year-old publishing company, the Hogarth Press.
The road outside Monk’s House
They have added 37 members to the Press’ subscribers list and have agreed to publish a new poem by their friend, American ex-pat Thomas Stearns Eliot, 34, called The Waste Land early in the new year. Virginia has donated £50 to a fund to help “poor Tom,” as she calls him, who still has a full-time day job at Lloyds Bank. Eliot takes the £50, as well as the $2,000 Dial magazine prize he has been awarded in America and sets up a trust fund for himself and his wife Vivienne, 34.
The Hogarth Press has published six titles this year, the same as last. But most important to Virginia, one of them, Jacob’s Room, is her first novel not published by her hated stepbrother, Gerald Duckworth, 52. She can write as she pleases now.
Most interesting to Virginia at the end of this year is her newfound friendship with another successful English novelist, Vita Sackville-West, 30. The Woolfs have been spending lots of time with Vita and her husband, Sir Harold Nicolson, 36.
Sir Harold Nicolson and Vita Sackville-West
Virginia writes in her diary,
The human soul, it seems to me, orients itself afresh every now and then. It is doing so now…No one can see it whole, therefore. The best of us catch a glimpse of a nose, a shoulder, something turning away, always in movement.”
*****
In France, American ex-pats Gertrude Stein, 48, and her partner, Alice B. Toklas, 45, are vacationing in St. Remy. They came for a month and have decided to stay for the duration of the winter.
Stein is pleased that her Geography and Plays has recently been published by Four Seas in Boston. This eclectic collection of stories, poems, plays and language experiments that she has written over the past decade comes with an encouraging introduction by one of her American friends, established novelist Sherwood Anderson, 46. He says that Gertrude’s work is among the most important being written today, and lives “among the little housekeeping words, the swaggering bullying street-corner words, the honest working, money-saving words.”
Geography and Plays by Gertrude Stein
The volume also contains her 1913 poem, “Sacred Emily,” which includes a phrase Stein repeats often,
Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose.”
Alice is thinking of using that as part of the logo for Gertrude’s personal stationery.
Stein and Alice are hopeful that Geography and Plays will help her blossoming reputation as a serious writer. For now, they are going to send some fruit to one of their new American friends back in Paris, foreign correspondent for the Toronto Star, Ernest Hemingway, 23, and his lovely wife Hadley, 31.
*****
In America, free-lance writer Dorothy Parker, 29, has had a terrible year.
She did get her first short story published, “Such a Pretty Little Picture” in this month’s issue of Smart Set. After years of writing only the light verse that sells easily to New York’s magazines and newspapers, Parker is starting to branch out and stretch herself more.
However, her stockbroker husband of five years, Edwin Pond Parker II, also 29, finally packed up and moved back to his family in Connecticut.
Dorothy and Eddie Parker
Parker took up with a would-be playwright from Chicago, Charles MacArthur, 27, who started hanging around with her lunch friends from the Algonquin Hotel. He broke Dottie’s heart—and her spirit after he contributed only $30 to her abortion. And made himself scarce afterwards.
On Christmas day there were no fewer than eight new plays for Parker to review. She had to bundle up against the cold and spend the holiday racing around to see as much of each one as she could. And then go home to no one but her bird Onan (“because he spills his seed”) and her dog Woodrow Wilson.
New York Times Square Christmas Eve 1920s by J. A. Blackwell
As she gets ready to jump into 1923, Parker works on the type of short poem she has become known for:
One Perfect Rose
By Dorothy Parker
A single flow’r he sent me, since we met. All tenderly his messenger he chose; Deep-hearted, pure, with scented dew still wet– One perfect rose.
I knew the language of the floweret; “My fragile leaves,” it said, “his heart enclose.” Love long has taken for his amulet One perfect rose.
Why is it no one ever sent me yet One perfect limousine, do you suppose? Ah no, it’s always just my luck to get One perfect rose.
Early next year I will be talking about the centenary of the publication of T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at the University of Pittsburgh, and about The Literary 1920s in Paris and New York City at the Osher program at Carnegie-Mellon University.
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.
Rumors are flying around New York City that a group of con men are planning to print cheap, bootleg copies of the scandalous new novel Ulysses by Irish writer James Joyce, 40.
These literary pirates plan to take advantage of the fact that 400 copies of the banned book were destroyed when they arrived in this country from the publisher in Paris, American bookstore owner Sylvia Beach, 35. Booksellers here would love to get their hands on some copies, which are going for as much as $100 each on the black market. Some are even being smuggled over the border by an American book lover who commutes to work in Canada.
Ulysses by James Joyce, first edition
One of Beach’s American friends has written to her, lamenting,
It is too absurd that Ulysses cannot circulate over here. I feel a bitter resentment over my inability to read it.”
In his law offices, attorney John Quinn, 52, who has helped to fund the publication and promotion of Ulysses, knows that getting an injunction against these literary thieves would be too expensive. They’d pass the printing plates on to more thieves in a different state and he’d spend all his time getting injunctions, state after state.
Quinn does have a creative solution, however. If he were to alert his nemesis, John Sumner, 46, the head of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice [NYSSV], that copies of the book that Sumner himself—and the court—have deemed obscene are indeed circulating, Sumner would put the time and effort into tracking down the gangs and stopping publication before the counterfeit copies hit the streets.
John Sumner
How ironic. Sumner was the guy Quinn fought in court to keep Ulysses legal.
The U. S. Customs authorities are trying to confiscate every copy of the novel that enters the country and then store them in the General Post Office Building. The local officials appeal to the Post Office Department in Washington, D. C., for instructions about what to do with the 400 copies of this 700-page book they are storing. The Feds respond that the book is obscene and all copies should be burned.
So they are.
New York General Post Office
*****
Some copies of Ulysses do make it safely into the States, shipped from London where they had been taken apart and wrapped in newspapers. These are from the second edition, published this fall in Paris by the Egoist Press, owned by Joyce’s patron, Harriet Shaw Weaver, 46.
Ulysses by James Joyce, second edition
When Harriet learned that at least 400 copies had been burned in New York, she simply ordered up 400 more.
Back in March, when the first major review of Ulysses appeared in The Observer—which considered the novel a work of genius, but concluded,
Yes. This is undoubtedly an obscene book.”
—a concerned citizen passed the clipping on to the Home Office, which contacted the undersecretary of state requesting the names and location of any bookstores selling Ulysses. Weaver also thinks they have sent a detective to follow her as she personally makes deliveries to each shop which has ordered copies to be sold under the counter only to special customers.
The Home Office also became aware of much more negative reviews of Ulysses, which led the undersecretary to call it “unreadable, unquotable, and unreviewable.” He issued instructions that copies entering the country should be seized, but his order is only provisional, and he doesn’t have a copy himself to read. So the Home Office requests an official opinion from the Crown Protection Service (CPS),
In the meantime, a British customs officer, doing his duty, takes a package from a passenger who landed at Croydon Airport in London, and, recognizing it as the banned Ulysses, flips to page 704 to see why. He confiscates the book on orders from His Majesty’s Customs and Excise Office, but the passenger complains that it is a work of art, praised by many reviewers, and on sale in bookshops in London as well as Paris.
Croydon Airport
Customs and Excise keeps the book but sends it on to the Home Office for a ruling.
This copy of Ulysses makes its way through the bureaucracy and finally lands on the desk of Sir Archibald Bodkin, 60, Director of Public Prosecutions at the CPS and scourge of the suffragettes whom his officers had routinely arrested and abused.
Sir Archibald Bodkin
Bodkin only had to read the final chapter to issue his decision. Which he did two days before the end of 1922:
I have not had the time nor, I may add, the inclination to read through this book. I have, however, read pages 690 to 732. I am entirely unable to appreciate how those pages are relevant to the rest of the book, or, indeed, what the book itself is about. I can discover no story, there is no introduction which might give a key to its purpose, and the pages above mentioned, written as they are as if composed by a more or less illiterate vulgar woman, form an entirely detached part of this production. In my opinion, there is…a great deal more than mere vulgarity or coarseness, there is a great deal of unmitigated filth and obscenity…It is filthy and filthy books are not allowed to be imported into this country.”
End of.
*****
In Paris, at the bookstore where it all began, Sylvia Beach is selling increasing numbers of Ulysses every day. Customers who come in asking for it leave with copies of all Joyce’s books.
By the end of the year, James Joyce is her best seller, beating out William Blake, Herman Melville, and, one of Sylvia’s favorites, Walt Whitman.
Early next year I will be talking about the centenary of the publication of T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at the University of Pittsburgh, and about The Literary 1920s in Paris and New York City at the Osher program at Carnegie-Mellon University.
Manager as Muse, about 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.
SuchFriends Blog 