Diaboliques: Six Tales of Decadence

Description

With its six trenchant tales of perverse love, this masterpiece of French decadent fiction returns Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly's signature collection to its rightful place in the ranks of literary fiction. The stories of Diaboliques combine horror, comedy, and irony to explore the foibles of men and women whose aristocratic world offers neither comfort nor protection from romantic failure or sexual outrage.

Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly (1808-1889) is one of the most notorious of decadent writers and the subject of a major critical and popular resurgence in France. His work has been adapted for film most recently by Catherine Breillat (The Last Mistress) and in the fifties by Alexandre Astruc (The Crimson Curtain, also the subject of a film planned in the 1920s by Andre Breton). Raymond N. MacKenzie is professor of English at the University of St. Thomas. His recent translation of Zola's Germinal was a finalist for the PEN Translation Prize, and his translation of Madame Bovary was included in the Norton Anthology of Western Literature.

"An excellent translation of a long overlooked author that will appeal to French literature and history enthusiasts."-Library Journal, starred review "[A] superb translation."-The Arts Fuse "MacKenzie has accomplished a sorely needed and very readable new translation. . . MacKenzie's updates the language and delivers important annotation while preserving the density and the eloquence of the original."-Los Angeles Review of Books "By far the best English edition of d'Aurevilly's magnum opus."-Translation and Literature