February house / Sherill Tippins.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Tippins, Sherill.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Bowles, Paul, 1910-1999.

Lee, Gypsy Rose, 1914-1970.

Britten, Benjamin, 1913-1976.

Auden, W. H. (Wystan Hugh), 1907-1973.

McCullers, Carson, 1917-1967.

Authors, American--Homes and haunts--New York (State)--New York.

Authors, American.

Authors, American--Homes and haunts.

Communal living.

Literary landmarks.

New York (State)--New York.

McCullers, Carson, 1917-1967--Homes and haunts--New York (State)--New York.

McCullers, Carson.

Auden, W. H. (Wystan Hugh), 1907-1973--Homes and haunts--New York (State)--New York.

Auden, W. H.

Britten, Benjamin, 1913-1976--Homes and haunts--New York (State)--New York.

Britten, Benjamin.

Bowles, Jane, 1917-1973--Homes and haunts--New York (State)--New York.

Bowles, Jane.

Bowles, Jane, 1917-1973.

Lee, Gypsy Rose, 1914-1970--Homes and haunts--New York (State)--New York.

Lee, Gypsy Rose.

Bowles, Paul, 1910-1999--Homes and haunts--New York (State)--New York.

Bowles, Paul.

American literature--New York (State)--New York--History and criticism.

American literature.

Literary landmarks--New York (State)--New York.

Communal living--New York (State)--New York.

Authors, American--20th century--Biography.

Brooklyn (New York, N.Y.)--Intellectual life.

Brooklyn (New York, N.Y.).

Brooklyn (New York, N.Y.)--Biography.

Genre:

Biographies.

Physical Description:

xiv, 317 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Boston : Houghton Mifflin, [2005]

Summary:

February House is the irresistible story of an extraordinary experiment in communal living, one involving young but already iconic writers - and the country's best-known burlesque performer - in a house at 7 Middagh Street in Brooklyn during 1940 and 1941. It was a fevered yearlong party fueled by the appetites of youth and by the shared sense of urgency to take action as artists in the months before America entered the war.

In spite of the sheer intensity of life at 7 Middagh, the house was for its residents a creative crucible. Carson McCullers's two masterpieces, The Member of the Wedding and The Ballad of the Sad Cafe, were born, bibulously, in Brooklyn. Gypsy Rose Lee, workmanlike by day, party girl by night, wroter her book The G-String Murders in her Middagh Street bedroom under the intensely personalized tutelage of editor extraordinaire George Davis. Auden - who along with Britten was being excoriated at home in England for absenting himself from the war - presided over the house like a peevish auntie, collecting rent money and dispensing romantic advice. And yet all the while he was composing some of the most important work of his career.

Sherill Tippins's February House, enlivened by primary sources and an unforgettable story, masterfully recreates daily life at the most fertile and improbable live-in salon of the twentieth century.

Contents:

Part I The House on the Hill: June-November 1940 1

Part II The Bawdy House: December 1940-February 1941 113

Part III The House of Genius: March-December 1941 179.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [291]-297) and index.

ISBN:

061841911X

OCLC:

57405991