Robert McAlmon's The Nightinghouls of Paris

Three pages from the manuscript of Robert McAlmon's The Nightinghouls of Paris. A roman à clef set in 1929 Montparnasse, it centres largely on Sudge Galbraith and Ross Campion, two Montreal boys modelled after Glassco and Graeme Taylor.

In 1947, McAlmon mailed the manuscript to Glassco. It was returned without comment, bringing their nineteen-year friendship to an abrupt end. Glassco was most disturbed by the frank portrayal of himself and his relationship with Taylor. The novel's publication would have been embarrassing, if not disastrous.

Glassco needn’t have worried about the novel’s appearance. In 1947, McAlmon’s career was already over; he would not live to see another title published. It wasn't until 2007, sixty years later, that The Nightinghouls of Paris was finally published by the University of Illinois Press. Edited with an Introduction by McAlmon's biographer Sanford J. Smoller, it is an invaluable document, and is recommended highly to anyone studying Glassco and his work.

The eighteenth of thirty posts focussing on images not found in A Gentleman of Pleasure.

The entire series can be found here.