The cult of decadence is usually dismissed as an eccentricity of French literature, a final twitter of Romantic neurosis, convulsing the lunatic fringe of letters during the last third of the nineteenth century. However, the nineteenth century's preoccupation with decadence provides us with a key to the secret places of its thought, to all the obscure passages and backstairs behind the triumphant façade. Between 1814 and 1914, there was no sense of disaster, no tragic sense. Civilization h...

The contradictions of Verlaine's nature are mirrored in his verse, which is alternately mystic, sensuous, exquisite and prosaic. He had extraordinary lyric powers; he was a master of eerie harmonies such as few other poets have achieved, and, in Sagesse, he produced religious verse which challenges comparison with the very best of its kind. Yet here and there can be found a curious weakening in the texture of thought and inspiration: he turns and twists, takes flight, seeks reassu...

Enduring icon of creativity, authenticity, and rebellion, and the subject of numerous new biographies, Arthur Rimbaud is one of the most repeatedly scrutinized literary figures of the last half-century. Yet almost thirty years have elapsed without a major new translation of his writings. Remedying this state of affairs is Rimbaud Complete*,* the first and only truly complete edition of Rimbaud’s work in English, translated, edited, and introduced by Wyatt Mason.Mas...

Reading was so important to Marcel Proust that it sometimes seems he was unable to create a personage without a book in hand. Everybody in his work reads: servants and masters, children and parents, artists and physicians. The more sophisticated characters find it natural to speak in quotations. Proust made literary taste a means of defining personalities and gave literature an actual role to play in his novels.In this wonderfully entertaining book, scholar and biographer Anka Muhls...

First published in 1859, this biography of Honoré de Balzac by his friend and colleague Théophile Gautier is now being released in this dual language edition, with a new English translation by David Desmond followed by the original French text.

In a famous Parisian chess café, a down-and-out, HIM, accosts a former acquaintance, ME, who has made good, more or less. They talk about chess, about genius, about good and evil, about music, they gossip about the society in which they move, one of extreme inequality, of corruption, of envy, and about the circle of hangers-on in which the down-and-out abides. The down-and-out from time to time is possessed with movements almost like spasms, in which he imitates, he gestures, he rants. And...

Fifth Volume in the Series: Proust Complete Bilingual - English / French - Vol. 1 to 7.Each English Volume is annotated and illustrated by P. Segal: PROUST SAID THAT, with different numbers and topics, followed by the original French version.In this volume: Issue N°5 from “Proustsaidthat Americana Collection”. (27 pages).Topics: In This Issue; Holiday Madness, The Café Lifestyle, The 1995 Proust Wake, Paris, Our Lady of the Typists, Proust Sightings, Chocolate Madel...

Third Volume in the Series: Proust Complete Bilingual - English / French- Vol. 1 to 7. Remembrance of Things Past / À la Recherche du Temps Perdu.Each English Volume is annotated and illustrated by P. Segal: PROUST SAID THAT. With different numbers and topics, followed by the original French version.In this volume: Issue N° 3 from “Proustsaidthat Americana Collection”.Topics: Untortured Love, Cacophony Society, Paris and Venice, The Little Phrase, Raymond Chandler, ...

First Published in 1995. This series comprises nearly 300 romances and melodies, most of which were composed during the 40 years that saw a blossoming of the romantic spirit in all the arts in France. This volume looks at Romantic French song of the 1830s to the 1870s and includes the works of Reber, Hugo and Lalo.

Moliere's plays are the cornerstone of the French Classical dramatic repertoire. Adapted and exploited in his day by dramatists of the English Restoration, they are now again growing in popularity. In this detailed and fascinating volume, Gerry McCarthy examines the practice and method of possibly the greatest actor-dramatist. From the rough farces of Moliere's days on the road to the creation of the diverse and spectacular court entertainments on his return to Paris, McCarthy sheds new li...

Last Volume in the Series: “Proust Complete Bilingual - English / French - Vol. 1 to 7.”Each English Volume is annotated and illustrated by P. Segal: PROUST SAID THAT, with different numbers and topics, followed by the original French version.In this volume: Issue N°7 from “Proustsaidthat Americana Collection”. (31 pages)Topics: How Proust Can Change Your Life, astrology, absinthe, guns, Proust Wake of 1997, Proust Sightings, coffee éclairs.Remembrance of Th...

The last thirty years have seen a renewed interest in the novels, plays, and essays of Marivaux. Each year more of his work is made available to the public in partial editions. More and better studies have appeared, superseding the old and, in the last thirty years, almost all of his plays have been performed. Today no corder of his work remains unexplored: our knowledge of his life, which had been until recently a tissue of fancy and anecdote, has been enhanced by the discovery of a few f...