A biography of Marguerite Steinheil (1869-1954), who ascended the social ladder in Belle Epoque Paris on the rungs of many lovers, until a night in May 1908 when her husband and mother were ... read more
"I have borne the musket of a soldier, the traveller's cane, and the pilgrim's staff: as a sailor my fate has been as inconstant as the wind: a kingfisher, I have made my nest among the wave... read more
An Alpine hotel with a room missing, a private bank in Switzerland, skullduggery over an inheritance, a ravishing young woman - just some of the layers in this fiendish onion of a novel.
Complete catalogue of the Ashmolean's collection by French artists born between 1775 and 1875: Boilly, Fantin-Latour, Cezanne, Manet, the three Pisarros, Monet, Matisse etc.
When Matisse was commissioned by the collector Albert C. Barnes (of what became the Barnes Foundation) to create a monumental mural - The Dance - he began to arrange his composition using ... read more
After graduating in Germany in 1939, FH was sent as an archivist to Paris, where he documented ordinary life throughout the war. He vanished in Berlin in 1945 and this is the first publicati... read more
Why was Cezanne revered by Rilke and Beckett, Picasso and Matisse? And does that early modernity speak to us now? An illustrated, ravishing study of Cezanne's uneasy art by the great emeritu... read more
Born in Russia, Poplavsky fled to Paris in the Revolution, where he become a literary and artistic enfant terrible of the emigré circles of Montparnasse. This novel, translated into English... read more
This long interview, recorded with the Swiss critic Pierre Courthion when the artist was recovering from an operation in bed during the Nazi Occupation, was never published - until now.
A beguiling work of auto-fiction - a juggling act that Carrère refined in Limonov, The Kingdom etc. He begins a ten-day retreat, lit by the sun of literary success, but desperate matters in... read more
Ruthlessly funny memoir of working front of house: the great deception of ease, of luxe, calme et volupte , of lamplight and conversation, while, behind the swing doors, rages a very differe... read more
A celebration of Saint Laurent's life and work with contributions by many tastebuds - Hamish Bowles, Diane von Furstenberg, Umberto Pasti, Natasha Fraser-Cavassoni, et alia.
Gabriel Cromer (1873-1934) was a French photographer who assembled a remarkable collection that ranges from photography's beginnings to c.1890. This collection never found a permanent home o... read more
Haussmann eat your heart out... these elegant watercolours and ink drawings are a boulevardier's delight. Accompanied by a text by a French ironmaster.
The spark for this remarkable memoir was a scribbled list of paintings that belonged to the Parisian author's great-grandparents - Degas, Renoir, Monet, Tiepolo etc - of which she knew nothi... read more
A powerful coming-of-age story - and its consequences for others - by the French-Mauritian writer who won the Prix Femina des Lyceens for The Tropic of Violence.
Everyday at least for that great patroness... loved not least because she paid her bills on time. This illustrated chronology of the porcelain, its commissioning and use, is a magnificent bo... read more
A fictional portrait of the life of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry - pilot, aristocrat and author of Le Petit Prince. Iturbe's last novel, The Librarian of Auschwitz, was a huge success.
Artisan trades of Paris - a ribbon maker, the boiseries of Feau et Cie, pastel crayons still rolled as they were in the time of Degas, etc., presented by a designer, artist and shopkeeper. M... read more
For those who would sell their soul for an éclair. Mille-feuilles for autumn, croissants for Sunday mornings, crêpes for tea, cakes and puddings so sublime your hips will forgive you.
A monograph on one of the most extraordinary French châteaux. Built in the C17th, Vaux-le-Vicomte was designed by Louis Le Vau in collaboration with the painter Charles Le Brun and the land... read more
A hotchpotch of journal entries from the last seven years to do with living around Paris, surprisingly free of the angst found in much of her other writing.
Begins with a Perec epigraph: "De l'autobus, je regarde Paris" - and Elkin does, in a diary of vignettes about the 'infra-ordinary' (Perec again): fellow commuters, a diversion, a girl with ... read more