Sydney and Violet: A Modernist Power Couple and Their Life with Eliot, Proust, Joyce, Huxley, Mansfield, Picasso and the Excruciatingly I

This long overdue biography of the power couple who nurtured and influenced the literary world of early twentieth-century England offers an intimate look at their dazzling circle.
Sydney and Violet Schiff were ubiquitous, Zelig-like figures in the most important literary movement of the twentieth century. Sydney was an admired writer and Violet was a talented musician who was among the first in England to recognize Proust s genius; their friendships among the elite of the Modernist writers were remarkable and extensive. Stephen Klaidman tells the story of how the Schiffs, despite their commercial and Jewish origins, won a central place in the snobbish, anti-Semitic, literary world of the time. A colorful, highly personal account of the Modernist movement, "Sydney and Violet" brings to life a panoply of extravagant personalities: Proust, Joyce, Picasso, Mansfield, Wyndham Lewis, T. S. Eliot, Aldous Huxley, and more."