Published in France in 1913, and in the United States in 1924, The Diary of A.O. Barnabooth is rightly considered one of the first truly original books of the 20th century. Larbaud's novel transforms the traditional "novel of education" into a comic, cosmopolitan search for "self realization." Barnabooth's adventures ricochet from Florence to San Marino, Venice, Trieste, Moscow, Sarajevo, St. Petersburg, Copenhagen. and London, as he strives to solve his spiritual, that is amatory, difficulties.