Elliot Paul, journalist and travel writer, was born today in 1891 in Linden, Massachusetts.
Paul specialized in vanishing worlds. The Life and Death of a Spanish Town, perhaps his most famous book, depicts the inhabitants and customs of Santa Eulalia on the island of Ibiza just before it was changed forever by the Spanish Civil War. The Last Time I Saw Paris is a minutely-observed, poignant portrait of the residents of Rue de la Huchette, in the Latin Quarter, in the days leading up to World War II.
This was decades before Ibiza became party central, Rue de la Huchette became a home for Greek restaurateurs, and the sedentary travel book became a guide to the good life.
Pulling my copy of The Life and Death of a Spanish Town from its shelf last night I found a bookmark from Sessler's Bookshop in Philadelphia - another vanished world - with lines from Ship of Fooles:
Still am I busy,
Bookes assembling,
For to have plentie
It is a pleasaunt thing.
You don't get that with Kindle.
