Venus as a boy
Ma-da-me, your character is nothing to shout about, and like all of us you are a negligible assemblage of atoms. But we will grant you one quality: you don’t cling. - Alfred Jarry To visit an art...
View ArticleMonsieur le Marquis
To be born is to acquire the privilege of fully developing one’s self. - Méphistophela, Catulle Mendès It was always going to be a challenge, this idea of summoning eccentrics and otherwise...
View ArticleLa Marquise de Sade
So yesterday we met Mathilde de Morny, Marquise de Belbeuf, Monsieur le Marquis, Missy, Uncle Max. To that string of aliases she could add an extraordinary number of literary avatars; her scandalous...
View ArticleBelle Époque Paris
Theme week! Next week it’s going to be all about Paris in the Belle Époque. From approximately 1890 to 1914, as France found itself cashed up and relatively combat-free, its capital splashed out on...
View ArticleDress-down Friday: Mathilde de Morny
Anyone conversant with Gawker and the noxious cloaca running down the right-hand side of the Daily Mail’s website would find the popular press of Belle Époque Paris strikingly familiar. Writers like...
View ArticlePearls: Colette
Our perfect companions never have fewer than four feet. Further reading Feasts, princes, champagne Monsieur le Marquis La Marquise de Sade Belle Époque Paris Dress-down Friday: Mathilde de Morny
View ArticleCircles: Natalie Clifford Barney
Brooks & Barney Well…this was inevitable, wasn’t it? Once the idea of mapping connections between writers, artists and undefinable members of semi-forgotten scenes was in the air, it was a given...
View ArticleA fountain of ink
An elderly lady sits in her apartment among her bric-à-brac, reminiscing about different places she has lived. She chats with her housekeeper, and later a neighbour drops in. A cosy enough domestic...
View ArticleColette on screen
French author Colette died on this day in 1954. She is the subject of a biopic to be released in the US next month, directed by Wash Westmoreland and starring Keira Knightley. Now, I can claim no...
View ArticleAmazon in her prime
Growing up in Australia, Halloween was something I only knew about from American movies rather than a matter of lived experience. As an adult I happened to be in New York at the end of October one...
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