Hotel Bemelmans

Probably Bemelmans’ best work and certainly his most famous essays, Hotel Bemelmans brilliantly evokes the kitchens, back passages, dining rooms, and banquet halls of Bemelmans’ years at the Hotel Splendide a thinly disguised stand-in for the Ritz. It’s a strange, fabulous, and sometimes terrible universe populated by rogues, con-men, geniuses, craftsmen, lunatics, gypsies, tramps, and thieves and it’s all here in bitingly funny detail. Twenty-four of the tales are vintage Bemelmans, two have never before been published, and the lot is accompanied by 73 of Bemelmans’ original, charming drawings.