Book: "February House" (2005) by Sherill Tippins

[Bob Pr.]

George Davis was a very important person, previously completely unknown to me. He and Gypsy Rose Lee first met as teenagers (she much younger) in a Michigan bookstore where he was a clerk and she was still Louise Hovick, browsing for books to buy and read between her acts with her sister June (Havoc). George recommended and sold her a copy of Shakespeare's sonnets. In his adult years, George was, for some time, the literary editor of Harper's Bazaar, a fashion magazine that also published articles and stories.

While George was sometimes a writer, his greatest talents were as an editor helping other writers find their voices (& publishers if needbe) and also finding and befriending significant talent in the arts (literary, music, visual, theater, etc). About 2 years before the USA entered WW-II (07Dec41), George had the dream of creating a boarding house in Brooklyn where such people would reside and provide ideas, inspirations and company to each other. W.H. Auden, Carson McCullers, Benjamin Britten, Gypsy Rose Lee, Jane & Paul Bowles, Oliver Smith, and Klaus Mann, were among the more prominent residents but the house became an evening gathering and party place for all kinds of well known and up-and-coming artsy people.

Under George's excellent tutelage, Gypsy wrote and published "The G-String Murders" plus gained the skill to later write her eponymous "Gypsy: a Memoir" and much else. "February House" got its nickname because so many residents had birthdays in that month. The house and living arrangements folded shortly after Pearl Harbor but it had a very significant and lasting effect on mid 20th century fine arts. Author Sherrill Tiippins does a fantastic job of integrating her research and telling her story as if she'd lived there. Her treatment of Auden and McCullers is especially detailed and provides behind the scene looks at the experiences and motivations that probably shaped some aspects of their works. Significant relationships of February House residents with others outside the house (e.g., Christopher Isherwood, Stephen Spender, etc.) is also detailed.

Amazon.com: February House: The Story of W. H. Auden, Carson McCullers, Jane and Paul Bowles, Benjamin Britten, and Gypsy Rose Lee, Under One Roof in Brooklyn (9780618711970): Sherill Tippins: Books