MORAND, Paul. Open All Night. Trans. by Vyvyan Beresford Holland. New York: Thomas Seltzer. 1923. 8vo. First American edition. Publisher’s quarter cream buckram over green boards with salmon paper label to spine, and in the salmon dust jacket. A good copy, the boards very clean and sharp, the binding tight and square, the topstain bright. Light offsetting to endpapers, some mild spots, but often clean. The dust jacket unclipped ($2.00 net), a little discoloured, and with some small nicks and chips. A pleasing copy.
Mostly forgotten by the anglophone, Paul Morand was a somewhat prototypical fin de siècle privileged European, travelling the world extensively, living much of his life opulently, rubbing shoulders with many of the world’s most famous literary figures of the early twentieth century, and having a self-aggrandised, egotistical viewpoint of both himself and the white male. He vehemently disagreed with Sartre’s existentialist philosophy—and any leftist ideology—and contentiously praised the leadership of Mussolini and anti-democratic politics. In spite of this, he was the most famous of French writers when this was published, Marcel Proust one of his biggest admirers. This a collection of short stories set across much of Europe and beyond. Ezra Pound also produced an English translation but a British edition never went ahead. Adapted for the screen in the 1924 film of the same name by Paul Bern, later husband of Jean Harlow. Uncommon in the dust jacket.
MORAND, Paul. Open All Night. Trans. by Vyvyan Beresford Holland. New York: Thomas Seltzer. 1923. 8vo. First American edition. Publisher’s quarter cream buckram over green boards with salmon paper label to spine, and in the salmon dust jacket. A good copy, the boards very clean and sharp, the binding tight and square, the topstain bright. Light offsetting to endpapers, some mild spots, but often clean. The dust jacket unclipped ($2.00 net), a little discoloured, and with some small nicks and chips. A pleasing copy.
Mostly forgotten by the anglophone, Paul Morand was a somewhat prototypical fin de siècle privileged European, travelling the world extensively, living much of his life opulently, rubbing shoulders with many of the world’s most famous literary figures of the early twentieth century, and having a self-aggrandised, egotistical viewpoint of both himself and the white male. He vehemently disagreed with Sartre’s existentialist philosophy—and any leftist ideology—and contentiously praised the leadership of Mussolini and anti-democratic politics. In spite of this, he was the most famous of French writers when this was published, Marcel Proust one of his biggest admirers. This a collection of short stories set across much of Europe and beyond. Ezra Pound also produced an English translation but a British edition never went ahead. Adapted for the screen in the 1924 film of the same name by Paul Bern, later husband of Jean Harlow. Uncommon in the dust jacket.
