Elegant Wits and Grand Horizontals: Courtesans by Cornelia Otis Skinner

Elegant Wits and Grand Horizontals: A sparkling panorama of "la belle epoque," its gilded society, irrepressible wits, and splendid courtesans.

The 1890s in Paris were a decade of elegance and perception, a heady mixture of high intellect and frivolous vivacity. Never has there been a period when "ladies" so commanded society, from a position so frequently horizontal - or when wit, so soon to be dulled, flowed faster than wine in the salons of the great hostesses, in the theatre, in the fashionable boulevard restaurants and nightclubs, and in the country chateaux of the beau monde. Never has amorous dalliance been conducted with more finesse - and success - nor duels flourished with greater ceremony and less danger to the participants. "The great business at hand was pleasure, conducted by a people who knew the seriousness of that business."

Written by American author and actress Cornelia Skinner, this book relates tales from the salons of Paris at the turn of the last century. The work is filled with anecdotes about actors, the literati, and the rest of the cultural elite, ranging from Oscar Wilde to Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec to Sarah Bernhardt. 

Title: Elegant Wits and Grand Horizontals 
Author: Cornelia Otis Skinner 
Publisher: The Riverside Press Cambridge, Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston 
Publication Date: January 1, 1962 
Copyright 1962 by Conde Nast Publications 
Binding: Hardcover, cloth 
Language: English 
Illustrated with photographs 
Printing: Third printing 
Pages: 262 
Measures approximately: 8 5/8 x 5 3/4 x 1 inch (22 x 15.5 x 2.5 cm.) 
Condition of the book: Please see the images. 
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