“Les Plus Beaux Tableaux du Monde” (“The Most Beautiful Paintings in the World”) was published by F. Nathan, in Paris. There’s no date. It’s identified as a “Jeu des Families”: a game in which the players collect four of a kind (a “family”), like the American game Authors. Twelve painters make the cut (with their […]

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An old scrapbook of musical instruments yielded this interesting picture of Juan Miguel and his “Jazz Guitar.” A Google search turned up nothing. It’s hard to believe that the elegant Juan and his remarkable instrument disappeared without a trace, but these things happen. (Posted by Doug Skinner)

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I’m now translating the comic monologues of Charles Cros (1842-1888), and am consequently unraveling the various versions of his first one, Le hareng saur. It’s not only one of Cros’s most popular poems, still dutifully recited by French schoolchildren, but one of the few translated into English. Most English readers, if they know Cros at […]

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