This long over­due biog­ra­phy of the pow­er cou­ple who nur­tured and influ­enced the lit­er­ary world of ear­ly twen­ti­eth-cen­tu­ry Eng­land offers an inti­mate look at their daz­zling cir­cle. Syd­ney and Vio­let Schiff were ubiq­ui­tous, Zelig-like fig­ures in the most impor­tant lit­er­ary move­ment of the twen­ti­eth cen­tu­ry. Syd­ney was an admired writer and Vio­let was a tal­ent­ed musi­cian, among the first in Eng­land to rec­og­nize Proust’s genius; their friend­ships among the elite of the Mod­ernist writ­ers were remark­able and exten­sive. Stephen Klaid­man tells the sto­ry of how the Schiffs, despite their com­mer­cial and Jew­ish ori­gins, won a cen­tral place in the snob­bish, anti-Semit­ic lit­er­ary world of the time. A col­or­ful, high­ly per­son­al account of the Mod­ernist move­ment, Syd­ney and Vio­let brings to life a panoply of extrav­a­gant per­son­al­i­ties: Proust, Joyce, Picas­so, Mans­field, Wyn­d­ham Lewis, T. S. Eliot, Aldous Hux­ley, and more.