Ladies Almanack - Paperback

by Djuna Barnes (Author), Djuna Barnes (Illustrator), Sarah Schulman (Introduction by)

A "striking lesbian manifesto and a deft parody" by the acclaimed author of Nightwood. (-Library Journal)

Nearly 100 years after its original 1928 publication sent shockwaves through the literary scene, Ladies Almanack reigns as a brilliant modernist composition and one of the most audacious lesbian texts of the 20^th century. At once a scathing social satire and a love letter to the wealthy expatriates of Paris high society, the book delights in its cast of characters, who are clear analogues to Barnes' lesbian literary contemporaries--and the book's first readers.Arranged by month and written in a pastiche of Restoration literature, Ladies Almanack records the life and lovers of Dame Evangeline Musset, a pseudonymous stand-in for Natalie Clifford Barney. Accompanied for the first time by Barnes' original Elizabethan-style woodcut illustrations, this new edition also features a sharp, impassioned introduction by Sarah Schulman reflecting on the ways in which lesbian lives have changed--and haven't--since the 1920s. After decades out of print, Dalkey Archive is proud to revive the Ladies Almanack for contemporary readers: a classic that delivers all the salacious drama of The L Word with the literary wit and wordplay of Shakespeare.

Author Biography

Djuna Barnes (1892-1982) is best known as the author of Nightwood, one of the finest novels of the modernist period. She published works in virtually every genre: short stories, poetry, journalism, drama, and pastiche, often illustrated with her own drawings. A notorious figure in the 1920s and 1930s, she became a recluse in her later years and was largely forgotten. But since her death, a major biography and several critical studies have established her importance in 20th-century literature. Dalkey Archive Press has reissued her Nightwood, Ryder, and Ladies Almanack.

Sarah Schulman is a novelist, playwright, nonfiction writer, screenwriter, and AIDS historian. Her 21st book is The Fantasy and Necessity of Solidarity.