“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, early July, 1922, Cap d’Antibes, Cote d’Azur, France

American ex-pat Sara Wiborg Murphy, 38, heiress to the Wiborg ink company fortune, is sitting in a cove on La Garoupe beach, keeping an eye on her three children—Honoria, 4; Baoth, 3; Patrick, 18 months—and her husband, Gerald, 34, heir to the Mark Cross company fortune. Lounging on a tan rug under a sun umbrella, Sara’s swimsuit straps are off her shoulders and her long string of pearls is draped down her back.

Cap d’Antibes by Henri Matisse

Gerald, in a cap and stripey swimsuit, and their host, American composer Cole Porter, just turned 31, are raking seaweed and stones, about three feet thick, to make the sand a bit more pleasant.

Cole is mostly known for writing the scores to the Hitchy-Koo Broadway revues and Gerald is studying painting in Paris.

Hitchy-Koo sheet music

When the Murphys first decided to take a holiday at the beginning of this month, during their first summer living in Paris, they chose Houlgate, a resort in Normandy on the English Channel.

The Murphys at Houlgate

Horrible. Even having some friends staying close by wasn’t enough to make up for the crap weather.

Back in Paris, Cole, and his wealthy wife Linda, 38, convinced them to come south with them to the Riviera for the next few weeks. They’ve rented a chateau because none of the hotels stay open past the end of the season in May. The locals think, what kind of people would want to come here in the hot summer?! And sit in the sun?! Apparently Americans do. And some Brits.

The Murphys and the Porters are loving it.

They are having some light refreshments—sherry, crackers—and will soon head back to the chateau for lunch.

Gerald and Sara have already decided—they will definitely come back here next summer.

Sara Murphy and Linda Porter doing yoga on the beach

“Such Friends”:  100 Years Ago… is the basis for the series, “Such Friends”:  The Literary 1920s. Volumes I and II covering 1920 and 1921 are available as signed copies at Riverstone Books in Squirrel Hill, Pittsburgh, PA, and also in print and e-book formats on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk. For more information, email me at kaydee@gypsyteacher.com.

Later in the year I will be talking about the centenary of the publication of T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institutes at Carnegie-Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh.

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, mid-December, 1921, Hotel Sainte Luce, Avenue Sainte-Luce 1, Lausanne, Switzerland; and Hotel Pas de Calais, 59 rue des Saints-Peres, Paris

American poet Tom Eliot, 33, has a decision to make.

His current plan is to leave Lausanne on Christmas Eve, when he should be done with the therapy treatments he is having here for his nervous condition. He will go to Paris to join up with his wife, Vivien, also 33, who has been there on her own for the past few weeks.

Hotel Sainte Luce

Or, he could stick around here for at least an extra week.

After he took a three-month leave of absence from his job at Lloyds Bank, Tom and Viv spent some weeks at Margate, on the English coast, where Tom made great progress on his long poem.

After seeing the top nerve specialist in London, Eliot agreed with him that he needed to get away and rest.

One of their friends, Ottoline Morrell, 48, who had shared with them her own bouts of depression, recommended this Dr. Roger Vittoz, 58, who had treated her brother here in Lausanne.

Dr. Roger Vittoz

The Eliots went first to Paris, where Tom worked on the poem—really still a handful of fragments—with another American ex-pat poet Ezra Pound, 36. Then Tom came here to begin treatments and Vivien stayed behind.

So far, Ottoline has been right about the town [although it’s a bit dull], the food [which is excellent], the people [who are very helpful], and the doctor.

The Vittoz method includes the doctor holding Tom’s head to read his brain waves and help to alter them. Vittoz gives Eliot exercises which involve repeating visuals and words which have brought him happiness.

Vittoz has been keeping Eliot busy, but he has found some times of calm to sit by Lake Geneva, working various moments he has experienced in to his epic.

The hotel is comfortable; the town is filled with chocolate shops, banks, and kids riding scooters over cobblestones.

From what Viv tells him, Paris is expensive. But any place in Europe is cheaper than London.

Tom is thinking he’ll stay here until the new year.

Of course, he could also spend a few days on the Riviera…

*****

In Paris, Vivien is not only worried about the expense, she is lonely. She has a little room high up in this hotel and can afford to eat only here instead of in any of the lovely Parisian cafes.

Hotel Pas de Calais

And when she’s been out in the neighborhood, Vivien feels that any Brits she knows from back home have been avoiding her. Just the other day at the post office, art critic Roger Fry, just turned 55, wasn’t happy to see her and made a hasty exit.

Paris is still cheaper than London. Ezra Pound and his wife have just moved into a lovely two-room studio around the corner for only £75 per year.

Maybe she and Tom should consider moving here…

“Such Friends”:  100 Years Ago… is the basis for the series, “Such Friends”:  The Literary 1920s. Volumes I and II covering 1920 and 1921 are available as signed copies at Riverstone Books, Squirrel Hill, Pittsburgh, PA, and in print and e-book formats on Amazon. If they can’t get it to you in time for gift giving, I can. Email me at kaydee@gypsyteacher.com.

Early in the new year I will be talking about the centenary of the publication of James Joyce’s Ulysses at the Osher Lifelong Learning programs at Carnegie-Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh.

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 in both print and e-book versions.

In Juan-les-Pins, on the French Riviera, in February, 1926…

 

…novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald, 29, is reassured by his editor at Scribner’s, Maxwell Perkins, 41, that there is great hope for his newest book, All the Sad Young Men, a collection of short stories, most of which have been published in the Saturday Evening Post.

Fitzgerald had written to Perkins that he was worried the book wouldn’t sell even 5000 copies. But Perkins responded that he felt the stories were not only commercial, but also literary. One, “Absolution,” was the beginning of what became Scott’s third novel, The Great Gatsby. Published last year, Gatsby has been well received critically, but Fitzgerald is disappointed with the sales. Perkins likes to bring out a short story collection soon after publishing a novel, to capitalize on the author’ popularity.

Original cover, 1926

In a few months, Fitzgerald is able to write to Charles Scribner, 71, the president of the publishing company,

For the first time in over four years, I am no longer in financial debt to you—or rather I won’t be when the money from my short story book becomes due me. But in another sense I shall always be in your debt—for your unfailing kindness and confidence and obligingness to me in all my exigencies during that time. Never once was I reminded of my obligations which were sometime as high at $4000, with no book in sight.

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

Manager as Muse explores Perkins’ work with Fitzgerald, Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe and is available on Amazon.

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.’