(The following essay discusses Harry Crosby and his wife, Caresse Crosby.)

Of all the Americans who lived in Paris during the twenties few were more vociferous than Harry Crosby in his rebellion against American puritanism, particularly as it was manifested in Boston society. By deed and by word Crosby railed against Boston, emblem of all that was awry in American life. Harry and Caresse Crosby went to Paris in 1922, not to seek an atmosphere congenial to creativity, but to escape the hostility of upper-class Boston, outraged at Harry Crosby's marriage to a divorced woman six years his senior. After their arrival in Paris, however, the Crosbys became part of its literary and artistic life, and Harry Crosby became one of the most flamboyant and extravagant of all the American expatriates until his notorious suicide in December 1929. During the seven years the Crosbys spent mostly in Paris, both of...