Paris est une fête

It was during the summer of 1957 that Hemingway began working on his “Parisian sketches”: notes and fragments of stories rediscovered by the concierge of the Ritz, and returned to him nearly forty years later, forgotten in a trunk. The rediscovery of the manuscripts came as a shock to Hemingway, who set to work, carrying them with him to Spain in the summer of 1959, then to Paris that autumn. He worked relentlessly to compose the collection, an evocation of his youth even as drink and melancholy consumed him. He would take his own life three years later, without having finished this last work, which was completed by Mary Welsh, his fourth wife, to whom we also owe the famous title: A Moveable Feast, a feast that never leaves you.

“Those discovering these stories should head straight for the one recounting the improbable Renault journey Fitzgerald and Hemingway made to Lyon (count the glasses of cognac Scott downed along the way), or the one about the boxing lesson given to Ezra Pound under Wyndham Lewis’s disapproving gaze, or again the legendary scene in which the owner of the Select coins the phrase “lost generation.” Joyce’s poor eyesight, Adrienne Monnier’s kindness, the whimsy of Joan Miró or Pascin, the self-importance of Ford Madox Ford, the escapades to Schruns or Pamplona complete this breviary of an unspoiled happiness.” (Jean-Paul Enthoven, Le Point, 2011).

A copy skillfully bound by Louise Bescond, who chose to interpret the graphic world of Sonia Delaunay.