Darcy Moore's Blog |PARIS COLLECTION

“I lived for about a year and a half in Paris, writing novels and short stories which no one would publish”. George Orwell

Researching for my book, Orwell in Paris, has led to eclectic reading about life in the French capital between the wars, especially the late 1920s.

Eric Blair aka George Orwell (1903-50) visited Paris six, perhaps seven times between 1927 and 1945 as a tourist, aspiring expatriate writer and war correspondent. His longest stay was for eighteen months during 1928-9 when he lived in the Latin Quarter, at 6 Rue du Pot de Fer, in the 5th Arrondissement. This experience provided much of the material for his first book, Down and Out in Paris and London (1933). The unnamed narrator resides in a squalid hotel on the fictional Rue du Coq d’Or:

“My hotel was called the Hôtel des Trois Moineaux. It was a dark, rickety warren of five storeys, cut up by wooden partitions into forty rooms. The rooms were small and inveterately dirty, for there was no maid, and Madame F., the patronne, had no time to do any sweeping. The walls were as thin as matchwood, and to hide the cracks they had been covered with layer after layer of pink paper, which had come loose and housed innumerable bugs.”

where he meets some unusual characters:

“The lodgers were a floating population, largely foreigners, who used to turn up without luggage, stay a week and then disappear again. They were of every trade –cobblers, bricklayers, stonemasons, navvies, students, prostitutes, rag-pickers. Some of them were fantastically poor. In one of the attics there was a Bulgarian student who made fancy shoes for the American market. From six to twelve he sat on his bed, making a dozen pairs of shoes and earning thirty-five francs; the rest of the day he attended lectures at the Sorbonne. He was studying for the Church, and books of theology lay face-down on his leather-strewn floor. In another room lived a Russian woman and her son, who called himself an artist. The mother worked sixteen hours a day, darning socks at twenty-five centimes a sock, while the son, decently dressed, loafed…”

Endeavouring to uncover Blair’s experiences in Paris continues to be an enthralling intellectual adventure. Peering into the deeper, hidden recesses of the radical cultural, bohemian, intellectual and literary life Paris offered has been a vicariously hedonistic pleasure. Walking the city, trying to re-imagine those days, reading widely and scouring the (digitised) archives for sources has revealed more about Blair, before he was Orwell, than I ever expected to learn. The generosity of others in sharing their knowledge has been humbling.

The bibliophile within has had a ridiculously good excuse to collect books, journals and other ephemera to build a library that would aid my understanding of the period. Please feel welcome to make suggestions after scanning my collection.

Place Monge from Historic Paris by Jetta S. Wolff (1921)

Rue Mouffetard from Historic Paris by Jetta S. Wolff (1921)

Non fiction

Arenander, Britt, Anais Nin’s Lost World: Paris in Words and Pictures 1924-1939, Sky Blue Press, 2012. 167pp.

Assouline, Pierre (translated by Harold J. Salemson), Gaston Gallimard: A Half-Century of French Publishing (English and French Edition), Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1988. 430pp.

Baxter, John, We’ll Always Have Paris: Sex and Love in the City of Light, Bantam, 2011

Beach, Sylvia, Shakespeare and Company, Bison Books, 1991

Benjamin, Walter, Charles Baudelaire: A Lyric Poet in the Era of High Capitalism, Verso Books, 1997

Begnal, Michael (editor), Joyce and the City: The Significance of Place (Irish Studies), New York: Syracuse University Press, 2002. 212pp.

Benjamin, Walter, The Writer of Modern Life: Essays on Charles Baudelaire, Belknap Press: An Imprint of Harvard University, 2006

Bouvet, Vincent, Paris Between the Wars: Art, Style and Glamour in the Crazy Years, Thames & Hudson, 2010

Brassaï (translated by Timothy Brent), Henry Miller: The Paris Years, New York: Arcade Press, 2011. 224pp.

Burgess, Anthony, Ernest Hemingway, Tauris Parke, 2015

Buse, Peter; Hirschkop, Ken; McCracken, Scott; Taithe, Bertran, Benjamin’s Arcades: An unGuided tour, Manchester University Press, 2006

Calonne, David Stephen, Henry Miller (Critical Lives), Reaktion Books, 2014

Camus, Albert, Create Dangerously, Penguin Random House, 2018

Cohen, Lisa, All We Know: Three Lives, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2013

Colette, The Pure and the Impure, New York: NYRB Classics, 2008. 208pp. (Translated by Professor Herma Briffault)

Craig, Sandy and Schwarz, Chris, Down and Out: Orwell’s Paris and London Revisited, Penguin, 1984

Cronin, Vincent, Paris, City of Light: 1919–1939, HarperCollins Publishers, 2017. 384pp.

Dazun, Edmond , Bannier, Lucien, Dictionnaire pratique d’esperanto: Francais-Ssperanto – Esperanto-Francais, Paris: SAT Amikaro, 1974. second edition

Dearborn, Mary V., Henry Miller – The Happiest Man Alive, London: HarperCollins, 1991. 368pp.

Douglas, Charles, Artist Quarter: Modigliani, Montmartre & Montparnasse, Pallas Athene, 2018

Dudley Andrew, Steven Ungar, Popular Front Paris and the Poetics of Culture, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2008, 449pp.

Ferguson, Robert, Henry Miller – A Life, London: Hutchinson, 1992. 397pp.

Fitch, Noel Riley, Sylvia Beach and the Lost Generation: A History of Literary Paris in the Twenties and Thirties, W. W. Norton & Company, 1985. 448pp.

Fitch, Noel Riley, In Transition: A Paris Anthology – Writing and art from Transition magazine 1927-1930, Anchor, 1990

Ford, Hugh, Published in Paris American and British Writers, Printers, and Publishers in Paris, 1920-1939, Macmillan Publish Co., 1975. 453pp.

Fussell, Paul, Abroad: British Literary Travelling Between the Wars, London: Oxford University Press, 1982. 246pp.

Gide, André, Back from the U.S.S.R., London: Secker & Warburg, 1937. 121pp. (First edition in DJ translated by Dorothy Bussy)

Glassco John, Memoirs of Montparnasse, New York: NYRB Classics, 2007. 296pp.

Glass, Charles, Americans in Paris: Life and Death under Nazi Occupation 1940–44, HarperPress, 2010

Govenar, Alan and Mary Niles, Anne Morgan: Photography, Philanthropy & Advocacy (English and French Edition), The American Friends Of Blerancourt, 2016

Green, Julian, Paris (Marion Boyars Modern Classics), Marion Boyars Publishers Ltd, 2005

Green, Julian, Diary: 1928-57, New York: Carroll & Graf Inc., 1985. 314pp.

Hooker, Denise, Nina Hamnett: Queen of Bohemia, Constable, 1986

Horne, Alistair, Seven Ages of Paris, Vintage, 2004

Jackson, Roger, Henry Miller: A Personal Archive, Valentine Miller, Tony Miller, Roger Jackson, Wm. E. Ashley Publishers, 1994 (1000 printed)

Kearney, Patrick J., The Paris Olympia Press, London: Black Spring Press Limited, 1987. 112pp. (No. 265/750 printed)

Latimer, Tirza True, Women Together/Women Apart: Portraits of Lesbian Paris, Rutgers University Press, 2005

Lee, Jennifer (editor), Paris In Mind: From Mark Twain to Langston Hughes, from Saul Bellow to David Sedaris: Three Centuries of Americans Writing About Their Romance (and Frustrations) with Paris, Vintage, 2003

Levy, Bernard Henri, Adventures on the Freedom Road: The French Intellectuals in the 20th Century, Harvill Press, 1995

Lewis, Elaine, Left Bank Waltz, Vintage, 2006

MacNiven, Ian S., The Durrell-Miller Letters 1935-1980, London: Faber and Faber Ltd., 1980. 528pp.

McAlmon, Robert; Boyle, Kay, Being Geniuses Together, 1920-1930, The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997

McCullough, David, The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris, Simon & Schuster Audio, 2011

McMillan, Douglas, Transition: The History of a Literary Era 1927-38, London: Calder and Boyars, 1975, 303pp.

Monnier, Adrienne, The Very Rich Hours of Adrienne Monnier, University of Nebraska Press, 1996

Pearson, Neil, Obelisk: A History of Jack Kahane and the Obelisk Press, Liverpool University Press, 2008

Perlès, Alfred, My Friend Henry Miller, The John Day Company, 1956 (first edition)

Pryce-Jones, David, Paris in the Third Reich: A History of the German Occupation, 1940-1944. Collins, 1981. 320pp.

Putnam, Samuel, Paris Was Our Mistress: Memoirs of a Lost and Found Generation, New York: Viking Press, 1947. 264pp.

Reynolds, Michael, Hemingway: The Paris Years, W. W. Norton & Company, 1999. 432pp.

Roe, Sue, In Montparnasse: The Emergence of Surrealism in Paris, from Duchamp to Dali, Fig Tree, 2018

Rood, Karen Lane (Editor), Dictionary of Literary Biography Volume 4: American Writers in Paris, 1920-1939, Gale Research Inc., 1980. 426pp.

Sante, Luc, The Other Paris: An Illustrated Journey Through a City’s Poor and Bohemian Past, Faber & Faber, 2017

Souhami, Diana, No Modernism Without Lesbians, London: Head of Zeus, 2020

Starkie, Enid, Baudelaire, Pelican Biographies, Great Britain, 1971, 720pp.

Stearns, Harold, Confessions of a Harvard Man: Paris and New York in the 1920s & 30s, The Paget Press, 1984, 423pp.

Sutton, Geoffrey H., Concise Encyclopedia of the Original Literature of Esperanto, Mondial, 2008

Turner, Frederick, Renegade: Henry Miller and the Making of the Tropic of Cancer, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2011

Van Vechten, Carl, The Splendid Drunken Twenties: Selections from the Daybooks, 1922-30, University of Illinois Press, 2007

Weiss, Andrea, Paris Was a Woman: Portraits from the Left Bank, Counterpoint, 2013

Wheeler, Robert, Hemingway’s Paris: A Writer’s City in Words and Images,Yucca, 2016. 179pp.

Wickes, George, Americans in Paris, New York: Da Capo Press, 1980. 302pp.

Wiser, William, The Crazy Years: Paris in the Twenties, Thames and Hudson, 1983

Wolff, Jetta Sophia, Historic Paris, London: John Lane Company, 1921

Jardin du Luxembourg from Historic Paris by Jetta S. Wolff (1921)

Journals

Bordes, François, “Un lieu littéraire pour la réflexion politique: la revue Paru, (p. 76-91) in La Revue des revues n° 37, Ent’revues, 2005, 128pp.

Esteves, Olivier & Rosat, Jean-Jacques, George Orwell: Entre littérature et politique, Agone 45, 2011 (George Orwell, between literature and politics)

Le Progrès Civique, No. 496, 16th February, 1929, 30pp. (Eric Blair published four articles in this paper between December 1928 and May 1929 but I have never been able to find them. This edition at least provides an example of the weekly.)

Monde, No 158, 13th June, 1931, 16pp. (Eric Blair published his first professional article, La Censure en Angleterre, in this paper on 6th October 1928 but I have never been able to find one. This edition at least provides an example of the rag that Henri Barbusse edited.) Thank you Chris Angel.

Revue L’ARC N°94 George Orwell, 1984

Patri, Aimé (Rédacteur en chef) Paru: L’actualité littéraire, intellectuelle et artistique, Numéro 36. Novembre 1947, Broschur; Éditions Odile Pathé, Monaco, 1947

Patri, Aimé (Rédacteur en chef) Paru: L’actualité littéraire, intellectuelle et artistique, Numéro 49. Décembre 1948, Broschur; Éditions Odile Pathé, Monaco, 1948

Salemson, Harold J., Tambour: Facsimile Edition, Volumes 1-8, Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2002 (generously gifted to me and inscribed by Steve Salemson)

Salemson, Harold J., Communisme de l’Oeil avec dix dessins de Touchagues, Paris: Editions Tambour, 1930. 29pp. in 13 x 17 cm format (#61 generously gifted to me by Steve Salemson)

Salemson, Harold J., “Why Do Americans Live in Europe?” transition #14 (Fall 1928)

First Editions

Barbusse, Henri (translated by Warre B. Wells), One Looks At Russia, London: J. M. Dent, 1931

Barbusse, Henri (translated by Vyyan Holland), Stalin: A New World Seen Through One Man, New York: International Publishers, 1935

Emile-Bayard, Jean, The Latin Quarter: Past & Present (with reminiscences by well-known authors and writers), T. Fisher Unwin Ltd, 1926

Emile-Bayard, Jean, Montmartre: Past and Present, with reminiscences by well-known authors and writers), New York: Brentano’s, 1926

Hamnett, Nina, The Laughing Torso: Reminisces, London: Constable & Co Ltd, 1932. 326pp.

Hoffman, Frederick John et al, The Little Magazine: A History and a Bibliography, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1946

Huddleston, Sisley, Back to Montparnasse: Glimpses of Broadway in Bohemia, Philadelphia & London: J. B. Lippincott, 1931

Huddleston, Sisley, Paris Salons, Cafes, Studios Being Social, Artistic and Literary Memories, Philadelphia & London: J. B. Lippincott, 1928

Huddleston, Sisley, Articles De Paris: A Book of Essays, Macmillan, 1928 (includes the first English review of Ulysses)

Kiki (translated by Samuel Putnam with an introduction by Ernst Hemingway), The Education of a French Model: Kiki’s Memoirs, Boar’s Head Books, 1950. 185pp.

Millant, Richard, La Drogue: Fumeurs et Mangeurs d’Opium, Paris: Librairie Africaine & Coloniale, 1910

Orwell, George, Down and Out in Paris and London, Victor Gollancz, 1933 (1500 copies printed)

Orwell, George, Down and Out in Paris and London, Victor Gollancz, 1933 Third Impression (1500 copies followed by another 500 for the second impression and then 1000 for this third impression – all in January)

Orwell, George, Down and Out in Paris and London, Harper and Brothers, 30th June 1933 (First American edition 1750 copies printed)

Perrin, Elula, (translated by Harold J. Salemson), Women prefer women, New York: William Morrow and Company, 1979. 239pp.

Perrin, Elula, (translated by Harold J. Salemson), So Long As There Are Women, New York: William Morrow and Company, 1980. 215pp.

Roberti, Jacques (translated by Mary Ford), Houses of the Lost (Á la Belle de Nuit), London: T. Werner Laurie Ltd., 1933

Roberti, Jacques (translated by Samuel Putnam), Without Sin (Á la Belle de Nuit), New York: Convci-Friede Publishers,1932

Lewis, D.B. Wyndham, François Villon, London: Peter Davies, 1928

French Language

Bordes, François, La canne à pêche de Gerges Orwell, Corlevour, 2018. 112pp.

Daguerches, Henry, Consolata Fille Du Soleio, Paris: Librairie Lemercier, 1928 (#145 of 250)

Dunn, Avril, George Orwell, mon frère, L’Échoppe, 2018. 35pp (Translated into French by Patrice Cotensin; illustrated by Ernest Pignon-Ernest)

France, Anatole, Les Contes de Jacques Tournebroche, Chez Calmann-Lévy à Paris, 1921

Jaulmes, Adrien, Sur Les Traces de George Orwell, Paris: Editions de Équateurs, 2019. 160pp.

Orwell, George, La Vache Enragée, Paris: Gallimard 25 May, 1935 (First French edition of Down and Out in Paris and London translated from English by Gwen Gilbert and René-Noël Raimbault – 5500 copies printed)

Orwell, George, La Vache Enragée, Gallimard, 1957. 289pp. (La Vache Enragée literally means The Raging Cow and this French edition of Down and Out in Paris and London was translated from English by Gwen Gilbert and René-Noël Raimbault)

Orwell, George, Dans la dèche à Paris et à Londres, Editions Champ Libre, 1982. 278pp. (Second French edition of Down and Out in Paris and London translated from English by Michel Pétris)

George Orwell: Correspondance avec son traducteur René-Noël Raimbault 1934-1935, édition bilingue français-anglais, Editions Jean-Michel Place, 2006. 141pp.

Orwell, George, Tragédie Birmane‎, Nagel, August 1946. 342pp. (First French edition of Burmese Days translated from English by Guillot de Saix – 7800 copies printed)

Orwell, George, Et Vive L’Aspidistra!, Gallimard, 1960, 332pp. (First French edition of Keep the Aspidistra Flying translated from English by Yvonne Davet – No. 31 of 35 numbered copies)

Orwell, George, Et Vive L’Aspidistra!, Paris: Editions Champ Libre, 1982. 340pp (Second French edition of Keep the Aspidistra Flying translated from English by Yvonne Davet)

Orwell, George, La Quai de Wigan, Paris: Editions Champ Libre, 1982. 260pp. (First French edition of The Road to Wigan Pier translated from English by Michel Pétris)

Orwell, George, La Catalogne Libre, Gallimard, 1955. 302pp. (First French edition of Homage to Catalonia translated from English by Yvonne Davet – No. 52 of 60 numbered copies)

Orwell, George, Hommage a La Catalogne, Paris: Editions Champ Libre, 1982. 296pp (Second French edition of Homage to Catalonia translated from English by Yvonne Davet)

Orwell, George, Journal D’Un Anglais Moyen, Amiot Dumont, 1952. 240pp. (First French edition of Coming Up For Air translated from English by Claude de Leschaux and serialised in Le Monde during August-September 1952)

Orwell, George, Essais Choisis, Gallimard, 1960, 304pp (First French trade edition of selected essays translated with a preface by Philip Thody)

Orwell, George, Les Animaux Partout!, Odile Pathé, 15 October 1947, (First French edition of Animal Farm translated by Sophie Dévil, preface by Jean Texcier – 5000 copies printed)

Orwell, George, Les Animaux Partout!, Odile Pathé, 15 October 1947, (First French edition of Animal Farm translated by Sophie Dévil, preface by Jean Texcier – 5000 copies printed) Contemporary binding in full green fabric, guards and contreplats of handmade paper, preserved covers, marbled.

Orwell, George, Les Animaux Partout!, Odile Pathé, 1948, (French magazine format edition by Réalités Littéraires Animal Farm translated by Sophie Dévil)

Orwell, George, La République des Animaux, Gallimard, 12 June 1964. 160pp. June (Another French edition of Animal Farm with the translator not named)

Orwell, George, La République des Animaux, Gallimard, 12 June 1964. 160pp. June (One of 31 copies printed on pure thread vellum in original glassine wrapper)

Orwell, George, La Ferme des Animaux, Ivrea, Champ Libre, June 1981. 113pp. (French edition translated from English by Jean Queval)

Orwell, George, 1984, Gallimard, Paris, 1950. 374pp. (First French trade edition of 1984 translated from English by Amélie Audiberti)

Philippe, Charles Louis, (Preface by T.S. Eliot), Bubu of Montparnasse, New York: Boar’s Head Books, 1950. 158pp.

Roberti, Jacques, Á la Belle de Nuit, Albin Michel, 1931. 384pp.

Photography and Art

Atget, Eugène, Atget: Postcards of a Lost Paris, MFA Publications, 2017

Benjamin, Roger, Orientalism: Delacroix to Klee, Art Gallery of New South Wales, 1997. 259pp.

Brassaï, Gyula Halasz, The Secret Paris of the 30’s, New York: Pantheon Books, 1977. 192pp.

Flammarion, Ernest, Paris: 285 Photographies, Flammarion, 1931. 212pp.

Galassi, Peter, Brassaï, Fundación Mapfre, 2018. 368pp.

Gautrand, Jean-Claude, Brassaï, Paris (25th Anniversary Special Editions), Taschen, 2008

Gautrand, Jean-Claude, Eugène Atget. Paris, TASCHEN, 2016

Kertész,André, J’Aime Paris Photographs Since the Twenties, Grossman Publishers, 1974

A Paris bistro kitchen (1927) André Kertész.

Kertész,André, Andre Kertesz, Centre National d’Art et de Culture Georges-Pompidou, 1977 (Published in conjunction with an exhibition held at the Centre National d’Art et de Culture Georges-Pompidou, 9th Dec. 1977-30th Jan. 1978)

Lottman, Herbert R., Man Ray’s Montparnasse, Harry N. Abrams, 2001

Rauschenberg, Christopher, Paris Changing: Revisiting Eugene Atget’s Paris, Princeton Architectural Press, 2016

Robertson, Nichole, Literary Paris: A Photographic Tour, Chronicle Books LLC, 2019. 128pp.

Salmon, André, Modigliani – A Memoir, New York: Jonathan Cape Ltd., 1961

Scott, Clive, Street Photography: From Atget to Cartier-Bresson, London: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC, 2007

Stettner, Louis, Sous le ciel de Paris, French and European Publications Inc., 2016. 248pp.

Jean-Julien Lemordant (1917)

Le Goffic, Charles, Ensemble of the Decorative Work of Jean-Julien Lemordant, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1919 (facsimile printed in India by Pranava Books)

Travel Guides

Baxter, John, The Golden Moments of Paris: A Guide to the Paris of the 1920s, Museyon Guides, 2014. 272pp.

Baxter, John, Montparnasse: Paris’s District of Memory and Desire, HarperCollins Publishers Inc., 2017. 272pp.

Cahill, Susan, The Streets of Paris: A Guide to the City of Light Following in the Footsteps of Famous Parisians Throughout History, St. Martin’s Press, 2017

Garance, Jacques; Ratton, Maud, Secret Paris, Jonglez Publishing, 2017

Leconte, A., Indicateur des Rues Paris Metro, Guide Pratique Pour Voyager dans Paris, August, 1929, 165pp.

Lesbros, Dominique (Simon Beaver Translator), Curiosities of Paris: an Idiosyncratic Guide to Overlooked Delights… Hidden in Plain Sight, Little Bookroom, 2017

Renault, Olivier, Montparnasse – les lieux de légende (Paris guides illustrés et thématiques), PARIGRAMME, 2013

Cook’s Motor Tours, How to See Paris: It’s Environs & the Battlefields, Thomas Cook, 1929

Poetry

Apollinaire, Guillaume, Zone: Selected Poems, NYRB Poets, 2015

Baudelaire, Charles, (translated by Edward K. Kaplan), The Parisian Prowler Le Spleen de Paris, Petits Poemes en Prose, The University of Georgia Press, 1997. 154pp.

Baudelaire, Charles, Flowers of Evil: A Selection (English and French Edition), New Directions, 1955

Baudelaire, Charles (translated by Greg Boyd), La Fanfarlo, Donald S. Ellis: Creative Arts Book Company, 1986. 127pp.

Baudelaire, Charles, Twenty Prose Poems (French and English Edition), City Lights Publishers, 2001

Miller, Henry, The Time of the Assassins: A Study of Rimbaud, New Directions, 1962

Fiction & Faction

Barnes, Djuna, Ladies Almanack, Martino Fine Books, 2016

Cocteau, Jean, Opium: The Diary of His Cure, Peter Owen Publishers, 2013. 244pp.

Colette, The Pure and the Impure, New York: NYRB Classics, 2000,.190pp. (originally published in 1932 as Le Pur et l’impur)

Farrere, Claude (translated by Samuel Putnam), Black Opium: Ecstasy of the Forbidden, Ronin Publishing, 2016. 200pp.

Farrere, Claude; Dubut de Laforest (translated by John Baxter), Morphine/My Lady Opium, Harper Perennial, 2010

France, Anatole (translated by B. Drillien) The Amethyst Ring, London: John Lane The Bodley Head Limited, 1924. 308pp.

Hemingway, Ernest, The First Forty Nine Stories, Arrow Books Ltd, 1994

Joyce, James, Ulysses, Dover Publications, 2009. 752pp. (An unabridged republication of the original Shakespeare and Company edition, published in Paris by Sylvia Beach, 1922)