Hotel Splendide

Table of Contents:
CONTENTS
1. The Animal Waiter 7
2. Art at the Hotel Splendide 14
3. The Lost Mandolin 23
4. Easy Money 35
5. Kalakobe 43
6. A Night in Granada 51
7. The Hispano 56
8. The Homesick Bus Boy 62
9. The New Suit 70
10. The Ballet Visits the Magician 82
11. The Magician Does a New Trick 89
12. The Dreams of the Magician 96
13. My Valet Lustgarten 105
14. The Banquet 116
15. The Murderer of the Splendide 129

Biographical Note:
Ludwig Bemelmans (1898-1962) was an Austrian-born American writer and illustrator of books for children and adults. He travelled to American in 1914, at the age of sixteen, and worked for three years in the dining halls of what he called, in his autobiographical works, the Hotel Splendide. In 1926, he quit working in hotels to become a full-time cartoonist and made frequent contributions to the New Yorker, Vogue and Town and Country. He is perhaps most well-known as the author of the beloved Madeline books.

Review Quotes:
"An uproarious account of his life as a waiter at the thinly disguised Ritz-Carlton in the 1920s . . . He is a canny observer with a wry sense of humor, an innocent bystander who simply looks on. He's like P.G. Wodehouse, with a touch of the Marx Brothers. . . . a delight from beginning to end."
--The Wall Street Journal