<p><em>The Modern Salonnière</em> is a collection of essays that combines Saxon Henry's passions of traveling, reading, and creative nonfiction. Locale by locale and book by book, Saxon brings the historical figures she has chosen as her subjects to life. Stroll through Paris while imagining the era when the Emperor Julian the Apostate ruled Lutetia, parts of which still stand at the Thermes de Cluny. Walk London's streets in search of the fin-de-siècle haunts where the Decadents were determined to turn convention on its ear. Trek to Croton-on-Hudson, New York, where Edna St-Vincent Millay summered with her avant-garde chums. Follow Peggy Guggenheim in Venice, Jim Morrison in Paris, Denys Finch-Hatton in Africa, Ottoline Morrell in Oxford, and Henry James in a string of Italian towns in Tuscany. These and many other characters who were inspiring enough that their stories continue to provoke curiosity people the narratives in <em>The Modern Salonnière</em>.</p>