MAGNIFICENT REBEL: Nancy Cunard In Jazz Age Paris

The controversial life of legendary beauty, writer and rich girl Nancy Cunard during her 13 years in Jazz-Age Paris. Paris in the 1920s was bursting with talent in the worlds of art, design and literature and at its centre was the gorgeous, seductive English socialite Nancy Cunard, scion of the famous shipping line. Her lovers were legion, but this book focuses on five of the most significant, and a lifelong friendship. Her affairs with acclaimed writers Ezra Pound, Aldous Huxley, Michael Arlen and Louis Aragon were passionate and tempestuous, as was her romance with black jazz pianist Henry Crowder. Her friendship with the famous Irish novelist George Moore, her mother's lover and a man falsely rumoured to be Nancy's father, was the longest-lasting of her life. Nancy's early years were ones of great wealth but also emotional deprivation. Her mother, Lady Cunard, the American heiress Maud Alice Burke, who later changed her name to Emerald, became a reigning London hostess. From an early age Nancy was given to promiscuity and heavy drinking, and preferred a life in the arts to one in the social sphere into which she had been born. A gifted poet and widely read, Nancy founded a small press that published Samuel Beckett among others. A muse to many, Nancy was also a courageous crusader against racism and fascism. She left Paris in 1933 at the end of its most glittering years and remained unafraid to live life on the edge until her death in 1965. Osbert Sitwell talked of Nancy's 'ineffable charm and distinction of mind'. Alannah Harper thought that 'whatever she did - however violent - Nancy always looked more distinguished than other people.' Harold Acton believed she had inspired half the poets and novelists of the Twenties. The City of Light provided Nancy with the richest and most stimulating artistic life in the Western world, untrammelled sex, and plenty of alcohol. Mina Loy wrote poems to her; Constantin Brancusi sculpted her; Man Ray photographed her; she played tennis with Ernest Hemingway and set up the Hours Press. It was the Armenian writer Michael Arlen's 'The Green Hat', a global bestseller which pictured Nancy as heroine, for which she is often remembered. Her major work was Negro, an anthology of writings by and about black people. An inspirational biography, 330pp, eight pages of fascinating archive photos, one or two in colour.