Against Nature - Couverture souple

Huysmans, Joris-Karl

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 0140447636 ISBN 13 : 9780140447637

Editeur : Penguin Classics, 2003

Synopsis

Infamous as the inspiration for the novel which slowly corrupts Oscar Wilde's "Dorian Gray", Joris-Karl Huysmans' "Against Nature" (A Rebours) is translated by Robert Baldick with an introduction by Patrick McGuinness in "Penguin Classics". A wildly original fin-de-siecle novel, "Against Nature" contains only one character. Des Esseintes is a decadent, ailing aristocrat who retreats to an isolated villa where her indulges his taste for luxury and excess. Veering between nervous excitability and debilitating ennui, he gluts his aesthetic appetites with classical literature and art, exotic jewels (with which he fatally encrusts the shell of his tortoise), rich perfumes and a kaleidoscope of sensual experiences. "Against Nature", in the words of the author, exploded 'like a meteorite' and has enjoyed a cult following to this day. This revised edition of Robert Baldick's lucid translation features a new introduction and a chronology, and reproduces Huysmans' original 1903 preface as well as a selection of reviews from writers including Mallarme, Zola and Wilde. Joris-Karl Huysmans (1848-1907) is now recognized as one of the most challenging and innovative figures in European literature and an acknowledged principal architect of the fin-de-siecle imagination. He was a career civil servant who wrote ten novels, most notably "A Rebours and La-Bas". If you enjoyed "Against Nature", you might like Huysmans' "The Damned (La-Bas)", also available in "Penguin Classics".

A propos du livre

Biographie de l'auteur :

Born in Paris in 1848 and acknowledged as a principal architect of the fin-de-siècle imagination, Joris-Karl Huysmans was a career civil servant who wrote ten novels, most notably A Rebours (1884) and Là-Bas (1891). Huysmans died in 1907.Robert Baldick (d.1972) translated widely from the French and wrote a biography of Huysmans.Patrick McGuinness is a Fellow and Tutor in French at St Anne's College, Oxford, and editor of Symbolism, Decadence and the Fin de Siecle (Exeter UP, 2000).

À propos de cette édition

• Éditeur: Penguin Classics
• Date d'édition: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0140447636
• ISBN 13: 9780140447637
• Reliure: Broché
• Nombre de pages: 288