French Decadent Tales (Oxford World's Classics)

'He had become the dandy of the unpredictable.' A quest for new sensations, and an avowed desire to shock possessed the Decadent writers of *fin-de-siècle* Paris. The years 1880-1900 saw an extraordinary, hothouse flowering of talent, that produced some of the most exotic, stylized, and cerebral literature in the French language. While 'Decadence' was a European movement, its epicentre was the French capital. On the eve of Freud's early discoveries, writers such as Gourmont, Lorrain, Maupassant, Mirbeau, Richepin, Schwob, and Villiers engaged in a species of wild analysis of their own, perfecting the art of short fiction as they did so. Death and Eros haunt these pages, and a polymorphous perversity by turns hilarious and horrifying. Their stories teem with addicts, maniacs, and murderers as they strive to outdo each other. This newly translated selection brings together the very best writing of the period, from lesser known figures as well as famous names. Provocative and unsettling, these extraordinary, corrosive little tales continue to cast a cold eye on the modern world.

CONTENTS

JULES BARBEY D'AUREVILLY

Don Juan's Crowning Love Affair

LÉON BLOY

A Dentist Terribly Punished

The Last Bake

The Lucky Sixpence

GUSTAVE GEFFROY

The Statue

RÉMY DE GOURMONT

Danaette

Don Juan's Secret

The Faun

On the Threshold

JULES LAFORGUE

Perseus and Andromeda

JEAN LORRAIN

An Unidentified Crime

The Man with the Bracelet

The Student's Tale

The Man Who Loved Consumptives

PIERRE LOUYS

A Case without Precedent

GUY DE MAUPASSANT

At the Death-Bed

The Night

A Walk

The Tresses

CATULLE MENDÈS

What the Shadow Demands

OCTAVE MIRBEAU

The Bath

The First Emotion

The Little Summer-House

On a Cure

JEAN RICHEPIN

Constant Guignard

Deshoulières

Pft! Pft!

GEORGES RODENBACH

The Time

MARCEL SCHWOB

The Brothel

The Sans-Gueule

52 and 53 Orfila

Lucretius, Poet

Paolo Uccello, Painter

VILLIERS DE L'ISLE ADAM

Sentimentalism

The Presentiment

The Desire to be a Man