I saw a book review in the Guardian, and when I checked the library already had it. I have already read a chapter in my tea-break.

Among the Bohemians by Virginia Nicholson. Excerpt. Guardian Review.

It seems to be a very lively book about the first 40 years of the 20th Century, and the sheer desperation of trying to make a living as an artist. An especially reckless choice for the kind of middle-class drop-outs that formed such a large proportion of the crowd. Of course, there was a High Bohemia, too (like the Bloomsbury Group) - but generally things were tight for the bourgeois in The Thirties so to denounce money and possessions was considered downright reckless, imprudent, and anti-social.

My interest lies not just in a general history of people who pre-dated the 'Sixties thing', before the Beats even. It was finding a description of my Bohemian dad (vegetarian, pacifist, mystical atheist, non-drinker, etc) in an old book recently (see 9th and 15th January blogs in the Archives) that sparked my interest in the period - and he was obviously around the edges of these kind of groups...I know he knew Luke Gertler who was the son of Mark Gertler (one of the better-known British artists of the time) - you can find Panto's book with a puppet play script by Luke, here (item 330) - his friend Mog (Morris Cox) ran a self-publishing business for many years, from the room upstairs....