THIS BOOK has benefitted from the vast generosity and support of many institutions, foundations, and individuals. I am grateful above all to Dartmouth College for providing me with the time and resources to pursue this project, and to my colleagues in the English, History, and French departments for their knowledge, interest, and encouragement. External financial support from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the American Philosophical Society allowed for generous research leave. A Frederick Burkhardt fellowship from the American Council of Learned Societies gave time and funding at the crucial moment following my tenure appointment. Residential fellowships at the National Humanities Center in North Carolina and at the Camargo Foundation in Cassis, France, allowed me to begin and end this book in beautiful and stimulating environments, surrounded by accomplished and supportive colleagues.
I am also grateful for the generosity of many individuals over the course of this project. Alice Kaplan, Michael Moon, and Maria DiBattista went beyond professional duty in supporting this book from beginning to end and in providing me with models of innovative and ethical scholarly inquiry. My debt to the three of you is enormous. Other individuals who contributed time, interest, references, and support for this project include Diane Afoumado, Karren Alenier, Mark Antliff, Jeremy Bigwood, Colleen Boggs, Niall Bond, Edward Burns, Carmen Callil, Michael Carpenter, Jane Carroll, Kate Conley, Jonathan Crewe, Robert Dundas, Tami Fay, Gretchen Holbrook Gerzina, Charles Glackin, John Harvey, Amy Hollywood, Marie-Geneviève Iselin, Daniel Laskin, Anne-Marie Levine, Klaus Milich, Robert Nutt, Alex Erik Pfingsttag, Francis Python, Charles Robertson, Werner Sollors, Orin Starn, Andrea Tarnowski, Hugo Vickers, James West, Melissa Zeiger, and my extraordinary research assistant Kathy Casey. Profound thanks to all of you. Vincent Faÿ generously shared documents and reminiscences related to his uncle. Caroline Piketty and Martine de Boisdeffre at the National Archives in Paris and Marie-Odile Germain at the Bibliothèque Nationale were helpful in securing documents and permissions. Particular acknowledgment is due to Nancy Miller and Victoria Rosner and to my editor, Jennifer Crewe, for bringing this book to press. I am also grateful to Catharine Stimpson, Robert Paxton, and my other reviewers at Columbia University Press for their cogent suggestions for revising the manuscript. In the end stages of the book, Asya Graf and Robert Fellman provided gracious assistance. Finally, a special thanks to my friend and colleague Brenda Silver, who effortlessly sustained this project on countless levels over the course of many years.
A special thanks is also due to the truly exceptional staff at Dartmouth’s Baker-Berry Library, for whom no research question was too daunting, no foreign library too inaccessible: Laura Braunstein, Reinhart Sonnenburg, Hazen Allen, and, above all, Miguel Valladares. I am also indebted to Betsy Dain and Eliza Robertson, the librarians at the National Humanities Center.
Ultimate thanks go to my family, who accompanied me throughout the research and writing of this book and who provided the support that enabled me to finish it: William, Jamie, Nick, and Heather Ermarth; Alex and Judy Will; Elizabeth Lyding Will; and Michael Ermarth, who was with me every step of the way and to whom this book is gratefully dedicated.
The author acknowledges permission from the following to reprint material under their control: Stanford G. Gann Jr., literary executor of the Gertrude Stein Estate, for Stein material; Vincent Faÿ, executor of the Bernard Faÿ Estate, for Faÿ material; Fred Dennis, executor of the Sylvia Beach Estate, for Beach material; the Archives of the Collège de France; the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, for material in the Stein collection; and the Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, for material from the Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas papers. The author has, in spite of all actions taken, not been able to trace the origin of some of the images. Should the rightful claimants recognize themselves in these photographs they may contact the publisher.