Of Love and Paris: Historic, Romantic and Obsessive Liaisons

The French may not have invented love but they perfected it, and the laboratory in which they did so was Paris. James Joyce called the city “a lamp for lovers, hung in the wood of the world.”

From the Middle Ages, Paris has drawn those who wish to experience the limits of love – intellectual, spiritual, carnal. In Of Love and Paris, John Baxter turns the spotlight on some of them, from the medieval troubadours who seduced court ladies with flowery verse to Man Ray, whose camera conferred im...