Fiction. This anthology is the largest ever selection from the Decadent and Symbolist writers of the French fin-de-siAA cle-a period whose social and spiritual ills had so much in common with those of today. The selection is based on a series of essays on contemporary writers published as THE BOOK OF MASKS by the foremost critic and author of the period: Remy de Gourmont. (The "masks" are remarkable portrait drawings by Felix Vallotton.) De Gourmont's essays brilliantly evoke the pre-occupations of each author, their genius ...
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Fiction. This anthology is the largest ever selection from the Decadent and Symbolist writers of the French fin-de-siAA cle-a period whose social and spiritual ills had so much in common with those of today. The selection is based on a series of essays on contemporary writers published as THE BOOK OF MASKS by the foremost critic and author of the period: Remy de Gourmont. (The "masks" are remarkable portrait drawings by Felix Vallotton.) De Gourmont's essays brilliantly evoke the pre-occupations of each author, their genius and shortcomings, while simultaneously describing, and contributing to, the literary theories of the movement. His introduction provides one of the most important overviews of Symbolism and describes its gradual subsidence into its "dark side": decadence. De Gourmont's book consisted solely of essays, but the editor of this anthology has added characteristic texts from each writer to accompany them. Nearly fifty are included, ranging from the extraordinarily obscure and unjustly forgotten to the literary giants of the day. Here are works by Gide, MallarmA[a???A, and Verlaine which have never before appeared in English.
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