Expatriate Paris: A Cultural and Literary Guide to Paris of the 1920's [Paperback]

Arlen J. Hansen (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

For travelers, Francophiles and the curious, this gossipy retrospective of expatriate life in Paris in the 1920s is a mosaic of quick glimpses--Sarah Bernhardt sleeping in a coffin to overcome her fear of death, Igor Stravinsky diving through a huge wreath at the premiere of his ballet Les Noces , Ford Madox Ford meeting Ernest Hemingway, Langston Hughes near starvation, Josephine Baker establishing her nightclub. The hundreds of short entries are organized geographically around 32 neighborhoods. Turn to "Hotel Ritz," and you learn that novelist Elinor Glyn stayed there as a WW I reporter, and that F. Scott Fitzgerald's story "Babylon Revisited" begins and ends at the hotel's bar. William Faulkner, Coco Chanel, Salvador Dali, Marc Chagall and Isadora Duncan are among the luminaries whose selective doings can be tracked with the aid of indexes that cross-reference streets, places, names and topics.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Arcade Pub (February 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1559700858
• ISBN-13: 978-1559700856
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 5.7 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #958,188 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars informative, March 9, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Expatriate Paris: A Cultural and Literary Guide to Paris of the 1920s (Hardcover)

The late Arlen Hansen was a legendery professor at the University of the Pacific, and a professor of mine. He taught a course on expatriate Paris in the 20's, and his passion for his subject comes through on every page of this book. I copied down information from this book for a recent trip to Paris, and without it I never would have found the apartment building in which Zelda Fitzgerald jammed the elevator on her and Scott's floor so that it would always be waiting for them (to the dismay of the manager). Such tid bits of delicious trivia abound on every page, and I highly recommend this book, especially if you are a fan of the literary 20's, and are planning on a trip to Paris in the future.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant investigation; witty revelation of expatriate Pari, October 5, 1999

By 

James M. Shebl PhD (Carlsbad, California) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Expatriate Paris: A Cultural and Literary Guide to Paris of the 1920s (Hardcover)

Hansen has given us a gift. His investigation into the haunts and habits of American writers and their circle in 1920's Paris is brilliant. Read the book and understand, in part, much of what they lived and how it manifests in their work. This is worth reading for myriad reasons. It is a romance, an adventure, an exploration.