{"id":82242,"date":"2026-09-22T15:02:29","date_gmt":"2026-09-22T15:02:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thebookbeat.com\/bookshop\/?post_type=product&#038;p=82242"},"modified":"2026-09-26T20:13:02","modified_gmt":"2026-09-26T20:13:02","slug":"these-were-the-hours-memories-of-my-hours-press-by-nancy-cunard","status":"publish","type":"product","link":"https:\/\/www.thebookbeat.com\/bookshop\/catalog\/these-were-the-hours-memories-of-my-hours-press-by-nancy-cunard\/","title":{"rendered":"These Were The Hours: Memories of My Hours Press by Nancy Cunard"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Rediscover the vibrant heart of the 1920s Parisian avant-garde through the eyes of one of its most legendary icons.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>First published posthumously in 1969 by the Southern Illinois University Press, <strong><em>These Were The Hours: Memories of My Hours Press, Reanville and Paris, 1928\u20131931<\/em><\/strong> is <strong>Nancy Cunard<\/strong>\u2019s intimate, firsthand account of her years as a pioneering small-press printer and publisher.<\/p>\n<p>As a flamboyant and defiant fixture of the Bohemian art crowd in Paris, Cunard established the Hours Press in 1927. Operating out of a hand-printing shop in R\u00e9anville and later Paris, she single-handedly mastered the grueling, physical craft of an Albion press during a historic summer heatwave. Over the course of three whirlwind years, her press became a vital crucible for literary Modernism, publishing 23 landmark books by some of the 20th century&#8217;s most radical voices.<\/p>\n<p>Inside this compelling memoir, Cunard shares vivid anecdotes and backstage glimpses into her collaborations with literary giants, including:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Samuel Beckett:<\/strong> Whom she famously gave his first separate publication.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Ezra Pound, Robert Graves, and Richard Aldington:<\/strong> Key figures of the expatriate poetry scene.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Louis Aragon:<\/strong> Including the behind-the-scenes story of his French translation of Lewis Carroll\u2019s <em>The Hunting of the Snark<\/em>.<\/li>\n<li><strong>George Moore and Norman Douglas:<\/strong> Literary heavyweights who supported her vision.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>More than just a collection of personal memories, this volume serves as an indispensable piece of literary history. It features an introduction and foreword by noted scholar Hugh Ford, rare black-and-white archival photographs, and a complete, detailed bibliography of the beautiful, limited-edition books produced by the Hours Press.<\/p>\n<p>Whether you are a collector of rare 1960s first editions, a student of expatriate Modernism, or a lover of independent print culture, <em>These Were The Hours<\/em> offers an unmatched, atmospheric look at a brief but brilliant moment when art, radical politics, and literature fused in expatriate France.<\/p>\n<p>Fine condition in dj. [crit.]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Rediscover the vibrant heart of the 1920s Parisian avant-garde through the eyes of one of its most legendary icons. First published posthumously in 1969 by the Southern Illinois University Press, These Were The Hours: Memories of My Hours Press, Reanville and Paris, 1928\u20131931 is Nancy Cunard\u2019s intimate, firsthand account of her years as a pioneering [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":82243,"template":"","meta":[],"product_brand":[],"product_cat":[104,98],"product_tag":[1706,342,512,1707,1705],"class_list":["post-82242","product","type-product","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","product_cat-history-biographies","product_cat-literature","product_tag-hours-press","product_tag-memoir","product_tag-modernism","product_tag-modernist-literature","product_tag-nancy-cunard","first","instock","taxable","shipping-taxable","purchasable","product-type-simple"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thebookbeat.com\/bookshop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product\/82242","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thebookbeat.com\/bookshop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thebookbeat.com\/bookshop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/product"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebookbeat.com\/bookshop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/82243"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thebookbeat.com\/bookshop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"product_brand","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebookbeat.com\/bookshop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product_brand?post=82242"},{"taxonomy":"product_cat","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebookbeat.com\/bookshop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product_cat?post=82242"},{"taxonomy":"product_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebookbeat.com\/bookshop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product_tag?post=82242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}