Barnes's affectionate lampoon of the expatriate lesbian community in Paris was privately printed in 1928. Arranged by month, it records the life and loves of Dame Evangeline Musset (modeled after salon hostess Natalie Barney) in a robust style taken from Shakespeare and Robert Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, and is illustrated throughout with Barnes's own drawings.

This new edition is a facsimile of the 1928 edition with the addition of an afterword providing details on the book's origins and a key to its real-life models.