Before settling into a writing career, he pursued a number of interests, including “working for a publisher, studying international trade in Arizona, even buying and selling a few paintings in Europe.”[4] A biographical note in the Saturday Review states: “He pursued his study of eighteenth-century France in much the same way his sophisticated figures lived their expensive lives: as a highly refined form of entertainment.”[5] This “entertainment” became his life’s work.
He wrote his first book, a biography of Madame du Barry, mistress of Louis XV, after returning to the United States.
He died in the American Hospital of Paris on December 19, 1972, after being hit by a motorist on the Place de la Concorde, just two days before what would have been his 50th birthday.
Few books are published of which this could be said.”[9] Paris in the Terror (1964): “Stanley Loomis describes massacres, conspiracies and confrontations with eloquence and power.
He is fascinating in his remarks about the plight of the impoverished rural nobility, 'pedigreed peasants,' about the homicidal mania of Marat and his followers, about the clash of personalities in the shadow of the guillotine.
"[10] ISBN 0-88029-401-9 A Crime of Passion (1967): “As a historian, Mr. Loomis has reconstructed for us an impeccable period piece and he has been artful, depositing his poisoned knowledge sparingly here and there, in bringing his story to a flood: the technique of 'The Turn of the Screw.