The Secret Paris of the 30s is one of the most remarkable photographic memoirs ever published. For years it was known that Brassa had taken a series of secret photographs that could not be published because of their daring nature. Alone, or in the company of friends, he discovered the forbidden Paris of the 1930s its brothels, its whores, its pimps, its opium dens the sordid yet bewitching bas-monde where high society mingled with the underworld.