FIVE LOVE AFFAIRS AND A FRIENDSHIP. THE PARIS LIFE OF NANCY CUNARD, ICON OF THE JAZZ AGE BY ANNE DE COURCY.

Born into a life of wealth and privilege in March 1896, the writer, heiress and political activist Nancy Cunard was dazzlingly beautiful, highly intelligent and an extraordinary force of energy. An icon of the Jazz Age, Nancy was said to have inspired half the poets and novelists of the twenties.

Nancy rebelled against expectations and pursued a life in the arts. She sought the constant company of artists, writers, poets and painters, first in London’s Soho and Mayfair, and then in the glamorous cafes of 1920s Paris. She read widely, wrote poetry and as a political activist she campaigned for civil rights and fought against fascism.

This is the remarkable story of Nancy’s Paris life, filled with art, sex and alcohol. A muse to Wyndham Lewis, Tristan Tzara and Ezra Pound; Mina Loy wrote poems to her; Constantin Brâncuși sculpted her; Man Ray photographed her; she played tennis with Ernest Hemingway and, after meeting her, the poet William Carlos Williams kept her photograph on his desk at all times.

She had many love affairs, the most significant of which are included in this book: the American poet Ezra Pound, the novelists Aldous Huxley and Michael Arlen (who characterised her as Iris Storm in his best-selling novel The Green Hat), Louis Aragon, the real founder of the Surrealist movement, and finally, and controversially, the black American jazz musician Henry Crowder, with whom she ran her printing press, the Hours Press, in Paris.

She was also shaped by her lifelong friendship with George Moore, her mother’s lover and one of the most acclaimed novelists at the time of her childhood. This tempestuous tale of passion and intrigue is as much a portrait of twenties Paris as it is the story of an extraordinary woman who defined her age.

Anne de Courcy is the author of fourteen widely acclaimed works of social history and biography, including, CHANEL’S RIVIERA, THE HUSBAND HUNTERS, THE FISHING FLEET, THE VICEROY’S DAUGHTERS and DEBS AT WAR. In the 1970s she was Woman’s Editor on the London Evening News and in the 1980s she was a regular feature-writer for the Evening Standard. She is also a former features writer and reviewer for the Daily Mail. She lives in London.

‘Anne de Courcy combines the perseverance of a social historian with the panache of a novelist’ The Times