The Paris Edition: 1927-1934

by Waverley Root

Book Overview

Paris Edition, The: The Autobiography Of Waverley Root 1927-1934 by Abt, Samuel, Ed. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0865472769
• ISBN13: 9780865472761
• Release Date: January 1987
• Publisher: Farrar Straus Giroux
• Length: 208 Pages
• Weight: 1.10 lbs.

Customer Reviews

A Delightful Memoir

I got a copy of The Paris Edition by chance because I enjoy reading about the Paris of the 1920's. This book proved to be everything I could have hoped for and more. The book is a memoir by Waverly Root about his life in Paris working for the Herald Tribune. In these days when newspapers are threatened with bankruptcy, this book helps us to remember how important newspapers were to daily life and what a loss it is to have them disappear. Mr. Root arrives in Paris as a young man seeking adventure and got a job working for the Herald Tribune on the night shift. He describes life in the city between the wars and the colorful people and places that he got to know. There are some uproariously funny stories in this book. One of them I count as the funniest episode I have ever read. I will leave it for you to discover but it has to do with a newspaper man who had difficulty pronouncing French and, despite his slapstick attempts at the language, kept confusing the natives not matter how ridiculous. Mr. Root points out in his book that he was often mistaken for Ernest Hemingway and even though they were both in Paris at the time they never met. Mr. Root's book gives a look behind the scenes of how newspapers were run and also provides a look at the adventure of living in a vibrant city like Paris, when Charles Lindberg made his solo flight over the Atlantic, café life and the many expatriate Americas that called Paris home for a time. This is a well-written book that once you have come to the end will wish it was much longer.

newspapers can be fun

Lively, humorous. instructive treatise on life in the press--in Paris in the good days, Filled with enthralling anecdotes. Root knew everybody except Hemingway.

He never knew Hemingway

Waverly Root attended Tufts. He was in Paris from 1927 to 1934 when the paper, the Paris Edition of the Chicago Tribune, folded. The Paris Edition was a club and a cult. Born in Providence, Rhode Island, Root grew up in Fall River, Massachusetts. In Paris in 1927 he never knew Hemingway. Work hours restricted his time to spend in the cafes. When Root worked at the Tribune he also produced copy for Mewsweek and a Danish newspaper. At the time Hemingway was a worker, too. Everyone did know about everyone else. On the Chicago Tribune's Paris Edition the Paris staff was not trusted to write editiorials. At the time of the Lindbergh flight, Root knew nothing about it. Generally journalists missed the significance of the event, but the common people dubbed the flyer a hero. William Shirer beat out another employee to cover the story. Waverly Root judged Gertrude Stein to have a true style. She made perfectly composed sentences. Her style represented a way of thinking. She passed this facility on to Hemingway. As a result of having a by-line, the author became an authority. The Chicago Tribune was more influential than the Herald in its coverage of the Montparnassians. The pace was surprising at the Tribune. Henry Miller and two friends who were models for characters in his novels were Tribune proofreaders. The Paris Edition was lucky for reason the colonel, the moving force of the Tribune, was four thousand miles away. The colonel's mother, Mrs. McCormick, was eccentric. She came to Paris with a companion, someone skilled in mental health matters. Bistro dogs were called Toto and cats were Minette. The Americans in Paris formed an enclave. After working in London for two years from 1928 to 1930, Root simply gave up his post to return to the Paris Edition. He found that in his absence things had been organized to pursue serious journalism. There was a morgue, a reference library. When the paper was sold to the Herald, Waverly Root received severance pay.