Years of Plenty Memoirist Élisabeth de Gramont, born this day in 1875 April 23 is the birthday Élisabeth de Gramont was forced to share with William Shakespeare, and as far as I can tell, she never held it against him. Today is Shakespeare’s 450th birthday, Lily’s 139th. What’s an age gap of 311 years to
April 23 is the birthday of the Modernist author, sculptor and music patron Élisabeth de Gramont. More than 500 passionate letters exist between Élisabeth and her lifelong lover and “eternal mate,” Natalie Barney. Nobody’s read them in English. Till now.
Join me 119 years ago in the Paris ballroom of the Duke and Duchess de Gramont, where Consuelo Vanderbilt is making her “social début.”
Where’s the Homer of lesbian love, the Tolstoy of lesbian love? Where’s the Maurice of lesbian love? Where’s the Joyce or the Proust of lesbian love?
