Set in post-World War II Paris, but looking back to the beginnings of the modernist movement, Confessions of a Literary Archaeologist is the adventurous tale of Carlton Lake’s lifelong treasure hunt in building what has been called “unquestionably the finest collection of research materials on modern French literature and the arts anywhere outside Paris.” Drawing on his rich resources of unpublished manuscripts, the author unveils many hitherto unknown or little-known facts about the lives and works of such twentieth-century luminaries as Matisse, Ravel, Gertrude Stein, Cocteau, Valery, Paul Eluard, Alfred Jarry, Satie, Céline, Marie Laurencin, and H.-P. Roché (author of Jules et Jim). Lake also gives nostalgic glimpses of Baudelaire and Rimbaud as well as revealing a completely new view of Toulouse-Lautrec.