Whilst living in Paris between 1950 and 1954, van der Elsken quickly fell for the attractions of Saint Germain des Prés and the people he found there. He spent most of his time photographing these new friends in cafés, paying particular attention to a kohl-eyed Australian girl named Vali Meyers, his sometime girlfriend.

When Edward Steichen, who was in Europe at the time collecting photographs for his Family of Man exhibition, saw van der Elsken's photographs, he suggested that the photographer sequence them into a fictional narrative (beeldroman / photonovel). Van der Elsken took Steichen's advice and developed a story revolving around Anne (Vali Meyers) and a Mexican student named Manuel, who is in love with her. Van der Elsken's stream-of-consciousness style was an important influence on post-war European and Japanese photographers. This visual record of life on the left bank set a precedent for later generations of photographers, such as Christer Stromholm, Nobuyoshi Araki, and Nan Goldin, who would all work in a similarly diaristic way.

First edition; 8vo (263 x 190 mm, 10¼ x 7½ in); black-and-white photographs printed in offset, design by Juriaan Schrofer, minor toning to margins; black paper-covered boards, leaning, photo-llustrated dust-jacket, wear and creasing to extremities, several nicks some strengthened with tape on verso, a very good copy; [112]pp.

Photography Between Covers pp92-3; Regards 113; The Book of 101 Books pp146-7; The Photobook A History, I p245; The Open Book p168; 802 Books from the Auer Collection p363; Eyes on Paris pp278-281; The Dutch Photobook 48-49