An Impersonation of Angels; A Biography of Jean Cocteau
New York: The Viking Press, 1968. Presumed First Edition, First printing. Hardcover. x, 438 pages. Footnotes. Illustrations. Bibliography. Notes. Index. Frederick Brown is the author of several award-winning books, including For the Soul of France; Flaubert, a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist; and Zola, one of The New York Times best books of the year. Brown has twice been the recipient of both Guggenheim and National Endowment for the Humanities fellowships. Jean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau (5 July 1889 – 11 October 1963) was a French poet, playwright, novelist, designer, filmmaker, visual artist and critic. He was one of the foremost creatives of the surrealist, avant-garde, and Dadaist movements; and one of the most influential figures in early 20th-century art. The National Observer suggested that, “of the artistic generation whose daring gave birth to Twentieth Century Art, Cocteau came closest to being a Renaissance man.” He is best known for his novels Le Grand Écart (1923), Le Livre blanc (1928), and Les Enfants Terribles (1929); the stage plays La Voix Humaine (1930), La Machine Infernale (1934), Les Parents terribles (1938), La Machine à écrire (1941), and L'Aigle à deux têtes (1946); and the films The Blood of a Poet (1930), Les Parents Terribles (1948), Beauty and the Beast (1946), Orpheus (1950), and Testament of Orpheus (1960), which alongside Blood of a Poet and Orpheus constitute the Orphic Trilogy. Cocteau insisted on calling himself a poet, classifying the great variety of his works – poems, novels, plays, essays, drawings, films – as "poésie", "poésie de roman", "poésie de thêatre", "poésie critique", "poésie graphique" and "poésie cinématographique" From a Kirkus review: For Professor Brown, Cocteau was endlessly "impersonating" his confreres and his lovers. Brown's biography is the fullest, the most ambitious close-up of Le Petit Cocteau's seven decades to appear in English. Brown has evidently pillaged all libraries, periods, and sources. An Impersonation of Angels is of unequivocal importance. Condition: Good / Good.
Keywords: Jean Cocteau, Stravinsky, Nijinsky, Diaghilev, Picasso, Raymond Radiguet, Jean Desbordes, Coco Chanel, Jean Marais, Santo-Sospir, Andre Gide, Marcel Proust, Erik Satie, Tristan Tzara
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