1923 | The Turkish Myth

(Moss and Gilliam standing far left)

Arthur Harold Moss (born November, 1889 Greenwich Village – Feb. 20,1969 Neuilly-sur-Marne) was an American expatriate poet, and magazine editor. His parents were immigrants: father, Joseph was German-Jewish and mother, Rebecca was Turkish.

Florence Gilliam, journalist and theatre critic, visited France in 1913 and again in 1919, but it was not until after she had left her high-school teaching job in Columbus, Ohio, and met editor Arthur Moss, whom she later married, that she decided to settle in Paris. She soon met Moss and went to work briefly for his Greenwich Village magazine the Quill. The September 1920 issue lists Gilliam as managing editor. Early in 1921, Moss and Gilliam left Greenwich Village--and the Quill--for Europe, and they settled in Paris in February. They became involved in the intellectual atmosphere of the Left Bank, and in August 1921, they founded Gargoyle, the first English-language review of arts and letters to appear in Continental Europe during the period between the two World Wars.

Arthur was able to give an opportunity to some artists to subsequently reach a broader audience than they would have otherwise. One aspiring writer was a young man, fresh out of the military, a war hero, by the name of Ernest Hemingway. The same Hemingway, who was a war correspondent in Istanbul.

(Moss third from left next to Hemingway)

And finally we find this article: The Turkish Myth.

Mavi Boncuk |

Arthur Harold Moss Web Site

The Nation. the June 13, 1923 edition The Turkish Myth By Arthur Moss & Florence Gilliam

The few Westerners of importance who have tried to give faithful pictures of life in the Near East have been outnumbered to the extent of being smothered. Major General Harbord, sent officially to investigate conditions; H. G. Dwight, a former United States consular official and author of “Constantinople” and “Stamboul Nights”; Pierre Loti, the romantic lover of Turkish civilization; Anatole France, whose keen mind usually penetrates popular illusions; and H. G. Wells, in “The Outline of History,” are members of the small group of Westerners who have defended Moslem civilization..... Read More