Like Tennessee Williams, Patrick Dennis caught the boldness, vitality, and iridescent theatricality of modern American personality. In Mame's mercurial metamorphoses we see American optimism and self-invention writ large. Camille Paglia Extravaganet follies and delirious escapades. New York Times As hilarious as a Marx brothers comedy. As elegant as a Schiaparelli eau de toilette. As exhilarating as laughing gas. Vanity Fair

Patrick Dennis (1921 - 1976) was one of the most widely read American authors of the 1950s and '60s. Among his sixteen novels, the majority of which were bestsellers, are Little Me, Around the World with Auntie Mame, Tony, How Firm a Foundation and Genius. A celebrity in bohemian New York culture, he led a double life as a bisexual man and a conventional husband and father, until becoming an exemplary butler to the elite in West Palm Beach and Chicago in the 1970s. In his own words, he attributed this change to being 'out of fashion' - and, 'I've said everything that I had to say. Twice.'