Ladies Almanack

More about the book

2016 Reprint of 1928 Edition. Full facsimile of the original edition, not reproduced with Optical Recognition Software. Carrying the longish title of "Ladies Almanack: showing their signs and their tides; their moons and their changes the seasons as it is with them; their eclipses and equinoxes; as well as a full record of diurnal and nocturnal distempers," Barnes work is a novel in which real persons or actual events figure under disguise. Its subject is the predominantly lesbian social circle centering on Natalie Clifford Barney's salon in Paris in the 1920s. It is written in an archaic, Rabelaisian style, with Barnes's own illustrations in the style of Elizabethan woodcuts. The obscure language, inside jokes and ambiguity of the work have kept critics arguing about whether it is an affectionate satire or a bitter attack, but Barney herself loved the book and re-read it throughout her life.