Samuel Putnam's love of language and literature served him well in Paris between 1927 and 1933 when his translations of works by French and Italian writers helped to finance his ventures as an editor and publisher. Throughout his career he demonstrated both his wide knowledge of international literature and his love for literary warfare. Although Putnam is justifiably better known for his later, ground-breaking studies of Brazilian literature and for his excellent translations, especially his highly regarded translation of Don Quixote (1949), his role as a debunker of both literary conservatism and the "isms" of the avant-garde earned him an important place in expatriate literary circles of the late twenties and early thirties. His memoir of that period, Paris Was Our Mistress (1947), documents the activities of a later generation of Americans abroad than those discussed in Malcolm Cowley's Exile's Return (1934, 1951) and provides a valuable record for literary historians.

Born in Rossville...