"Now this be a Tale of as fine a Wench as ever wet Bed. . . . Thus begins this Almanack, which all Ladies should carry about with them, as the Priest his Breviary, as the Cook his Recipes, as the Doctor his Physic, as the Bride her Fears, and as the Lion his Roar!"
Barnes's affectionate lampoon of the expatriate lesbian community in Paris was privately printed in 1928. Arranged by month, it records the life and loves of Dame Evangeline Musset (modeled after salon hostess Natalie Barney) in a robust style taken from Shakespeare and Robert Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, and is illustrated throughout with Barnes's own drawings.
This new edition is a facsimile of the 1928 edition with the addition of an afterword providing details on the book's origins and a key to its real-life models.
"[I]f you are able to contain your cackling long enough to consider the truth underlying the jest, you will come away with an understanding of the dilemmas facing lesbians at the opening of the century. You'll find that they are not much different from the questions we grapple with today." (Lambda Book Report 12-91)
"As an 'Almanack,' the book celebrates the uniqueness of women . . . extolling their society with separatist sentiment not violent or radical so much as mirthful and delightful." (The Daily Helmsman 11-5-91)
