How To Travel Incognito
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Pushkin Press
Publishing:22nd Oct '26
£12.99
This title is due to be published on 22nd October, and will be despatched as soon as possible.
When Ludwig Bemelmans encounters the dashing yet penniless Comte de St. Cucuface aboard a Paris train, he is swept into a deliciously absurd adventure across postwar France. Under the Count's gleeful tutelage, Bemelmans adopts the persona of a German prince, mastering the art of hoodwinking strangers with immaculate manners and effortless charm. Together, the unlikely duo embark on a run of outlandish escapades, living extravagantly on nothing at all. They dine in grand hotels, befriend millionaires, outwit restaurateurs and regale nouveau-riche Americans with fantastical tales of their aristocratic pasts. First published in 1952, this autobiographical travelogue from the beloved creator of Madeline brims with quick wit and whimsical illustrations. Bemelmans captures a France poised between eras, where fading old-world elegance mingles with the glitter of the new. Madcap, urbane and laugh-out-loud funny, it's a charming reminder that the most memorable journeys are the ones that let us become someone else entirely.
A picaresque fantasy about life in modern France. It is the tale of Bemelmans, the reasonably fly left-bank American, being shown by an improbable impoverished aristocrat how to make flyness into something spectacular, not only as a way of living, but as a way of life * Spectator *
A man of wit, taste and talent, Ludwig Bemelmans has earned a grateful public. . . [a] recommended purchase for adults, their children and possibly their children's children * New York Times *
Bemelmans is always funny, insightful and dead on target. No one has ever surpassed the master -- Anthony Bourdain
Under the guise of an alias as Prince of Bavaria, Bemelmans travels de luxe with an authentic, down-at-heels nobleman as guide and arbiter. . . a series of madcap adventures' * Kirkus Reviews *
An excellent storyteller * Sunday Times *
The singularity of Bemelmans, whether he draws or writes, is his double capacity to see freshly like a child and comment shrewdly like a grown-up. The product is an awry wisdom, the wisdom of a reflective innocent who is surprised at nothing and delighted with everything -- Clifton Fadiman
I know of no other writing that pleases the mental palate as pungently, swiftly and freshly as does Mr Bemelmans -- Elizabeth Bowen * Tatler *
An artist in both line and words. . . with talents of gold * Observer *
ISBN: 9781805680260
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: unknown
224 pages