Of Obelisks and Daffodils The Publishing History of the Obelisk Press (1929 - 1939)

Of Obelisks and Daffodils tells the complete story of Jack Kahane and his Paris publishing company, the Obelisk Press. It brings together for the first time in one volume an accurate and concise biography of Jack Kahane, an unprecedented and complete Obelisk Press bibliography (with color photographs of each book), and a study of the literary significance and importance of the Obelisk Press's first issue, Kahane's own Daffodil. During the years that Kahane operated the Obelisk Press, from 1931 until his death in 1939, the Obelisk Press would publish the major works of Henry Miller (Tropic of Cancer, Tropic of Capricorn, Black Spring, Max and the White Phagocytes), the first major work of Lawrence Durrell (The Black Book), work by James Joyce (Haveth Childers Everywhere), work by Anais Nin (The Winter of Artifice), and unexpurgated works of Radclyffe Hall (The Well of Loneliness), D. H. Lawrence (Lady Chatterley's Lover), and Peter Neagoe (Storm). Yet none of these important works of literature sold more copies in the years that Kahane operated the Obelisk Press than did his own light novel Daffodil.