The One Who Is Legion

The story centers on a suicide known as A.D., who comes back to life as an intersex person to read the journals of their past life, written in the epigrammatic poetic style of Barney’s earlier work in French. Envisioning an ideal existence unlimited by the restrictions of gender, this utopian vision of quasi-lesbian existence was a central inspiration for one-time lover and friend, Djuna Barnes, in the writing of Nightwood. The work was praised by her coterie, but publisher Eric Partidge found the book so bewildering that he convinced Barney to write a short afterward with a plot summary and descriptive list of characters. Illustrated by two black and white plates by American artist Romaine Brooks, Barney’s lifelong partner.