Our Hearts Were Young and Gay is the title of a book by actress Cornelia Otis Skinner

Cornelia Otis Skinner

Cornelia Otis Skinner was an American author and actress.-Biography:Skinner was the daughter of the actor Otis Skinner and his wife Maud Skinner. After attending the all-girls' Baldwin School and Bryn Mawr College and studying theatre at the Sorbonne in Paris, she began her career on the stage...

 and journalist Emily Kimbrough, published in 1942. The book presents a description of their Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

an tour in the 1920s, when they were fresh out of college from Bryn Mawr

Bryn Mawr College

Bryn Mawr College is a women's liberal arts college located in Bryn Mawr, a community in Lower Merion Township, Pennsylvania, ten miles west of Philadelphia. The name "Bryn Mawr" means "big hill" in Welsh....

. Skinner wrote of Kimbrough, "To know Emily is to enhance one's days with gaiety, charm and occasional terror". The book was popular with readers, spending five weeks atop the New York Times Best Seller list

New York Times Best Seller list

The New York Times Best Seller list is widely considered the preeminent list of best-selling books in the United States. It is published weekly in The New York Times Book Review magazine, which is published in the Sunday edition of The New York Times and as a stand-alone publication...

 in the winter of 1943.

The book was made into a motion picture in 1944, and was dramatized by Jean Kerr

Jean Kerr

Jean Kerr was an American author and playwright born in Scranton, Pennsylvania and best known for her humorous bestseller, Please Don't Eat the Daisies, and the plays King of Hearts and Mary, Mary...

in 1946.