Untitled Document

Sleep in a Nest

Flames

additional reading

Barnes, Djuna

Collected Stories. Los Angeles: Sun and Moon Press, 1996.

A collection of Barnes' short stories, including Behind the Heart, one in which the author examines her feelings about her relationship with Charles Henri Ford. An interpretation of this story is included in Sleep in a Nest of Flames. The book contains an introduction by Phillip Herring.

Bowles, Paul

In Touch: The Letters of Paul Bowles. New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 1994.

With a foreword by the editor Jeffrey Miller, this is a sampling of Bowles' voluminous correspondence, including many letters to Charles Henri Ford.

Calloway, Stephen

Baroque Baroque, The Culture of Excess. London: Phaidon Press Limited, 1994.

Calloway takes the decades of the twentieth century and explores how a baroque sensibility has manifested itself in each one. Film, visual art, fashion and interior design are used to show how this style has persisted in this age of orthodox severity. Surrealism and Neo-Romanticism are reflected in the work of Ford's intimates Pavel Tchelitchew and Cecil Beaton. The extravagance of Ford's friends the Sitwells is examined as being emblematic of this imaginative view of culture.

Duncan, Michael

Pavel Tchelitchew: Language of the Body. Katonah Museum of Art, 1998.

An overview of the artist with whom Charles Henri Ford spent 25 years of his life. Portraits of Ford and his circle are included in this the catalogue of a groundbreaking exhibition.

Ford, Charles Henri

Out of the Labyrinth, Selected Poems. San Francisco: City Lights, 1991.

A selection of Ford's poetry from 1938 to the 1980's, including two photographs of Ford.

Ford, Charles Henri

Editor, View, Parade of the Avant-Garde: An Anthology of View Magazine 1940-1947, introduction by Catrina Neiman. New York: Thunder's Mouth Press, 1991.

This anthology, compiled by Catrina Neiman and Paul Nathan, is an overview of View magazine, including artists such as Marcel Duchamp, Joseph Cornell and Man Ray, and such writers as William Carlos Williams, Paul Bowles and Jean Paul Sartre. The magazine, which was edited by Charles Henri Ford, was one of the most innovative magazines of the 1940's. Paul Bowles provides a foreword and Catrina Neiman gives an introduction to this highly visual work

Ford, Charles Henri and Tyler, Parker

The Young and Evil. New York: Sea Horse Press, 1988

One of the first novels to deal with gay characters in a nonjudgmental way. The introduction by Steven Watson gives a context for this pioneering work.

Ford, Charles Henri

Water from a Bucket. New York: Turtle Point Press, 2001

A selection from Charles Henri Ford's journals from 1948-1957. Edmund White in describing this book has written: "These pages show a golden moment before art surrendered to commerce, before gay life became brainless and ghettoized and before America turned its back on Europe." With an introduction by Lynne Tillman, this book offers great insight into Ford's world during these years.

For more information, log on: www.turtlepointpress.com

Gaddis, Eugene R.

Magician of the Modern. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2000.

The first full length study of Chick Austin, the innovative director of the Wasworth Atheneum in Hartford, Connecticut during the 1930's and 1940's. We are given a window onto the inner workings of the art world at this period through Austin and his circle. The Paper Ball of 1936 is covered in detail in this book. The author Eugene Gaddis appears in Sleep in a Nest of Flames and puts this remarkable event in context.

Herring, Phillip

Djuna, The Life and Works of Djuna Barnes. New York: Viking, 1995.

The definitive biography of Djuna Barnes; a chapter covers her relationship Charles Henri Ford. The book tells the story of this major twentieth century writer.

Myers, John Bernard

Tracking the Marvellous: A Life in the New York Art World. New York: Random House, 1983.

The memoirs of John Bernard Myers who in his early years in New York was managing editor of View magazine under Charles Henri Ford and Parker Tyler. His firsthand account of the inner workings of View is a unique window onto this avant-garde publication.

Rorem, Ned

Knowing When to Stop. New York: Simon and Shuster, 1994.

In Rorem's memoir he remembers, among other things, Ford and his world. Rorem appears in Sleep in a Nest of Flames and this book offers a background of the composer and diarist.

Sawin, Martica

Surrealism in Exile. Cambridge: the MIT Press, 1995.

Sawin tells the story of how Surrealism was transferred to America during World War II. She has offered invaluable insights for Sleep in a Nest of Flames and her interview will be included in a forthcoming scholarly version.

Tyler, Parker

The Divine Comedy of Pavel Tchelitchew. New York: Fleet Publishing Corp., 1967

The definitive biography of Pavel Tchelitchew by Ford's partner in art, Parker Tyler. Tchelitchew was Ford's lover for 25 years and this gives a sense of the world in which they traveled.

Tyler, Parker

Screening the Sexes: Homosexuality in the Movies. New York: Holt , Rinehart and Winston, 1972.

In this book Tyler, Charles Henri Ford's co-author of The Young and Evil, presents the first examination of homosexuality in film and shows how gay signifiers were used in films of the past. The book preceded Vito Russo's seminal The Celluloid Closet by ten years.

Watson, Steven

Prepare for Saints: Gertrude Stein, Virgil Thomson and the Mainstreaming of American Modernism. New York: Random House, 1998.

Watson offers a thorough investigation of the production of this first truly modern opera in America. He also offers insights into how the groundwork was set for the prevalence of Modernism in the contemporary arts.

White, Edmund

Genet, a Biography. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1993.

The definitive biography in English of the great French writer. White appears in Sleep in a Nest of Flames and puts Genet's relationship with Ford in context.

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