Writer, artist, ny gallery proprietor, and co-editor of the Little Review, Jane Heap used to be probably the most dynamic figures of the foreign avant garde, making a existence that outlined the "modernist event" as a syncretic one. intentionally looking a low profile all through her lifestyles, Heap has pissed off many students attracted to her own lifestyles and the terribly very important interval during which she lived. via her correspondence, Heap right here unearths her intimate self in addition to her extra public, inventive relationships with the various legends of recent artwork, literature, and spirituality. Focusing totally on the voluminous letters written by means of Heap to Florence Reynolds, the correspondence incorporated during this quantity spans the years from 1908-1949, incorporating extra illuminating letters to Reynolds from different major figures in Heap's life.

Heap's letters exhibit the unconventional transformation of a dreamy, younger Midwestern lady right into a forceful, subtle arbiter of overseas modernism and supply infrequent perception into the fight for lesbian id and neighborhood through the inter-war interval. They element her eventual abandonment of artwork within the look for the transcendent within the seductive and esoteric mysticism of George Gurdjieff. Holly Baggett's accompanying essay extra highlights the confidence of Jane Heap's aesthetics and life.