Book excerpt: Paris Was a Woman is an illustrated collective portrait of the unique community of women who became known as the "women of the left bank". Authors Colette, Djuna Barnes, and Gertrude Stein, poets H.D. and Natalie Clifford Barney, painters Romaine Brooks and Marie Laurencin, editors Bryher, Alice Toklas, Margaret Anderson, and Jane Heap, photographers Berenice Abbott and Gisele Freund, booksellers Sylvia Beach and Adrienne Monnier, and journalist Janet Flanner all figured in this legendary milieu. A wealth of photographs, paintings, drawings, and literary fragments, many previously unpublished, combine with Andrea Weiss's lively and revealing text to give an unparalleled insight into this extraordinary network of women for whom Paris was neither mistress nor muse, but a different kind of woman.