A Moveable Feast
The same cafés remembered from the next table — written thirty-six years earlier, and without the knives.
Read our take
Paris Salons, Cafés, Studios
A Times correspondent's eyewitness tour of the salons and café tables of 1920s Paris — Joyce, Pound, Sylvia Beach, and the young Hemingway, sketched from the next chair.
- 1928
About Sisley Huddleston
The story, briefly
Spoiler-freeHuddleston was the best-connected English journalist in Paris, and in 1928 he wrote it all down while it was still happening: Paul Fort holding court at the Closerie des Lilas, Sylvia Beach deciding to publish Ulysses, Pound turning composer, the Ballet Mécanique riot, the tourists in pearls slumming at the Rotonde — and a young Hemingway, freshly famous, affectionately parodied in his own style. Half the rooms in this book still have addresses; this is what they sounded like from a chair inside.
The story, in more detail
Huddleston had the best seat in Paris and knew it. The Times of London sent him to cover the 1919 Peace Conference; he stayed to cover everything else, and by the mid-twenties the portly Englishman presiding over the Anglo-American press lunches knew both literary Parises — the French one of Paul Fort and the academies, and the foreign one assembling at the Dôme and the rue de l'Odéon — better than anyone writing in English.[1]
In 1928 he did the sensible, priceless thing: he wrote it all down while it was still happening. Salon by salon, café by café, studio by studio, the book tours the era mid-performance — Sylvia Beach deciding to publish Ulysses, Pound turning composer, the riots at modernist premieres, and a newly famous young Hemingway, whose hunt for a simple style Huddleston had watched at the press lunches and whose finished manner he affectionately parodies in these pages.[1]
Lippincott published it in America in 1928; Britain got it from Harrap as Bohemian Literary and Social Life in Paris. It sold as journalism and survives as testimony: no hindsight, no legend-polishing, no idea how any of it would end. The book is now in the public domain — free to read — and half its rooms are addresses you can still walk to, which makes it the closest thing to a founding document, written from the next chair.[1]
What's inside
A guided tour of literary and artistic Paris in the twenties, written by the Times correspondent who had a chair in every room. Huddleston organizes it the way the city organized itself: by salon, café, and studio — the French literary world of Paul Fort and the academies on one side, the Anglo-American colony of Montparnasse on the other, and the traffic between them that most memoirs never mention. Sylvia Beach and the publishing of Ulysses, Pound's operatic experiments, the riots that greeted the new music and painting, the tourist invasion of the Rotonde — all reported as news, because it still was.[1]
The pleasure is the eyewitness present tense: nobody in these pages knows how the story ends, least of all the affectionately parodied young Hemingway. Chapters stand alone, so the book rewards browsing — start with a room you already know and read outward. It is the era's best single piece of testimony from the next chair, and it is in the public domain: the whole thing can be read free online.[1]
Themes and analysis
A book that must appear
Beach's enthusiasm acquires weight because Huddleston first describes the financial difficulty of her shop: expensive English-language books need readers who can afford them. His account then gives Joyce the practical objections and Beach the insistence that Ulysses deserves publication. The exchange makes literary judgment an undertaking with consequences, not merely an expression of taste. Beach must create the means by which the work can reach an audience. In this portrait, the publisher's courage joins artistic conviction to the material business of keeping books in circulation.
When the parties moved to the dance hall
Moving Ford's parties out of his home changes who must answer for the guests. Huddleston describes the dance hall as a release from the host's obligations, but his own approval is withheld: he prefers the later studio gatherings with a selected company. That shift makes the anecdote more than a celebration of free-ranging bohemian sociability. The narrator distinguishes the crowd from the people he considers genuinely creative. His pleasure in the dancing does not erase the exclusions that helped assemble his favored circle.
Quotes from Paris Salons, Cafés, Studios
The evenings of the Closerie des Lilas come back to me vividly. The Prince of Poets sat in state on an upholstered bench of the café; while around him was his court of writers … To the drinking of coffee and of bocks, poetry was recited, analysed, and appraised.
Once upon a time the Closerie des Lilas at the corner of the Boulevard du Montparnasse was a guinguette — a country-inn on the route to Fontainebleau. Baudelaire frequented it.
My attention was first called to them by a tremendous row one evening at the Closerie des Lilas. Chairs hurtled through the air, crockery crashed through the window.
Why we recommend it
The witness across the table
Huddleston isn't remembering an era forty years later — he's reporting it in 1928, with Joyce still reading aloud, Beach still at the shop, and the Surrealists still throwing chairs at the Closerie.
Both Parises, not just the expat one
Paul Fort, Maeterlinck, and the French literary world share these pages with the Anglo-Americans — the half of café life the expatriate memoirs mostly walked past.
It walks the same rooms, and it's free
The Closerie, the Rotonde, the Dôme, the Select, Shakespeare and Company — chapter by chapter, the rooms the Paris books were written in, and it is public domain.
What this book explores
Timeline
1919
Huddleston reports on the Paris Peace Conference, beginning the period of observation behind his portrait of the city.
1928
J. B. Lippincott publishes Paris Salons, Cafés, Studios in the United States.
1928
Harrap publishes the British edition as Bohemian Literary and Social Life in Paris, the alternate title of the same work.
Book editions
Hardcover
- Hardcover
- J. B. Lippincott
- 1928
Ebook
- Ebook
Reader reviews
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Huddleston watched Hemingway hunt the style, then parodied the finished novel within two years — with obvious fondness.
Read our takeParis Salons, Cafés, Studios: frequently asked questions
Who wrote Paris Salons, Cafés, Studios?
Sisley Huddleston, the best-connected English journalist in Paris. It was published in 1928.
What is Paris Salons, Cafés, Studios about?
An eyewitness record of 1920s literary Paris — Paul Fort at the Closerie des Lilas, Sylvia Beach deciding to publish Ulysses, the Ballet Mécanique riot, and a young, freshly famous Hemingway.
When was it written?
In 1928, while the scene it describes was still happening — a contemporary account rather than a memoir written decades later.
Why do we cite it so often?
Half the book is set in rooms that still have addresses. It is a primary source for how those salons, cafés, and studios sounded from a chair inside them.
Who appears in it?
The whole quarter — Sylvia Beach, Ford Madox Ford, Ezra Pound, F. Scott Fitzgerald, the young Hemingway, and the tourists in pearls slumming at the Rotonde.
If you like Sisley Huddleston
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Louis-Ferdinand Céline
The doctor of the Paris slums who wrote the century's blackest, funniest novel — and changed the sound of French prose.
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Henry Miller
The Brooklyn dropout who arrived in Paris broke at thirty-eight and wrote the exuberant, banned books that ended American censorship.
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Places in this book
La Closerie des Lilas
Depicted
Paul Fort's Tuesday court, the old guinguette history, and the Surrealist banquet row — three eras of the café in a few pages.
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Le Select
Depicted
Where Huddleston sets his affectionate parody of the Hemingway style — 'Well, let's go over to the Select.' 'Righto!'
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La Rotonde
Depicted
Italians, Spaniards, and Balkanics with a sprinkling of French — the Rotonde's row in Huddleston's café census of the crossroads.
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Le Dôme
Depicted
Scandinavians, British, and Americans — the Dôme's row in the café census, plus the painters in négligé dodging the tourists in pearls.
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Jardin du Luxembourg
Depicted
Sherwood Anderson's Paris, as Huddleston saw it — a man who could hardly set foot outdoors without entering the great gates of the gardens.
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Théâtre des Champs-Élysées
Depicted
The Ballet Mécanique riot, reported from the seats — sixteen pianolas, an electric propeller, and Pound in a flowing blue shirt shouting down the hecklers.
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2 Square de Robiac
Depicted
Joyce's cool quiet study by the Champ de Mars — where Huddleston heard the twelve-hundred-hours defense of Work in Progress.
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Shakespeare and Company (12 Rue de l'Odéon)
Depicted
A full chapter on Sylvia Beach's shop — the goldfish bowl, the Whitman manuscripts pinned in the back parlor, and the decision to publish Ulysses.
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Bal Musette
Depicted
Ford Madox Ford's parties, exiled from his studio to a bal musette behind the Panthéon — the workers astonished at the invasion of artists and writers.
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Chez Émile
Depicted
The upper room on the Boul' Mich' where Ford, Pierre Loving, Pound, and Huddleston played with ideas for hours — a room only this memoir remembers.
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The Salon on the Avenue Charles Floquet
Depicted
Mrs. Christian Gross's drawing room by the Champ de Mars, where Pound the composer debuted his Villon songs to an invited and astonished audience.
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Bal Bullier
Depicted
The mock-oriental dance hall opposite the Closerie — the landmark by which the quarter navigated, and the lilac garden that named the café.
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References
The sources below include the primary text, editions, scholarship, archival materials, and other records that informed this page. They document Paris Salons, Cafés, Studios, its publication, and its place in literary history.
2Paris Salons, Cafés, Studios — WorldCat Edition Record
Official recordWorldCat, 1928Used forUsed to verify the 1928 edition, authorship, publisher, and bibliographic record.
3Paris Salons, Cafés, Studios — Bibliographic Record and Contents
Official recordGoogle Books, 1928Used forUsed to cross-check the book's contents, length, publication details, and subjects.
4Paris Salons, Cafés, Studios: Being Social, Artistic and Literary Memories
ArchiveOpen Library / Internet Archive, 1928Used forThe Internet Archive-linked record provides a complete scan and independently verifies the 1928 edition's pagination and imprint.
5Review of Paris Salons, Cafés, Studios
PeriodicalThe Notre Dame Scholastic, University of Notre Dame Archives, 1929Used forA contemporary university periodical review records how Huddleston's account of literary and artistic Paris was received on publication.
6Bohemian Literary and Social Life in Paris — British edition
WebsiteUsed forWeb source consulted for documented facts and historical context presented on the Paris Salons, Cafés, Studios page.
7Paris Salons, Cafés, Studios — 1928 text
MemoirJ. B. Lippincott Company, 1928Used forPrimary passages, pp. 121 and 208–210.
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Why these sources are here
The primary text is the baseline reference for every book page. Additional references document publication history, interpretation, and historical context where that evidence is available.
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