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None of Jean Lorrain's biographers has contrived to discover exactly when or why he began taking ether, or how much of it he took before realising (too late) that it was an extremely bad idea. The drug certainly helped provide the feverish, nightmarish atmosphere of these wonderfully decadent and sophisticated tales, and many of the apparitions with which they are populated. Brian Stableford's superb translations represent the first appearance in English of Jean Lorrain's ether-inspired 'nightmares', originally collected as Sensations et Souvenirs in 1895. The later tales also translated here for the first time are in the tradition of the contes cruel, and in them the influence of ether-drinking is still very much apparent. In his authoritative Introduction Brian Stableford presents Lorrain as one of the select band of literary figures "whose life and art were bound together into the most seamless whole. He was the man who embodied, more intimately and more inescapably than any other, the absurdities, affectations, paradoxes and perversities of the Decadent style and the Decadent world-view."
No other writer of the fin-de-siEcle period undertook a more elaborate exploration of perversities and abnormalities than Jean Lorrain, and no one else went as far afield in the search for discoveries of that curious kind than he did. Perhaps, given the variety of human behavior, it was not possible for him actually to invent perversities that no one actually practiced, or were even tempted to practice, but what is certain is that no one ever examined the anatomy of eroticism, including its wilder extremes, with a greater analytical fervor. In this, the second collection of short stories by Jean Lorrain to be made available in English, exquisitely translated by Brian Stableford, psychological studies of amorous perversity are presented together with mock-folktales, giving further evidence of the amazing inventiveness and imagination of one of the key figures of the Decadent Movement.
Take a deep breath. Air—without it, life on Earth would cease to exist. Though not usually seen, its presence is relied upon. At once both ethereal and physical, air has been associated with flight and spirit, and yet it has progressively become a territory that can be claimed through communications, warfare, travel, and scientific exploration. At the same time, air is no longer a completely reliable part of our daily life: like water, it has become an environmental element that must be watched closely for quality and purity. A Matter of Air investigates the meanings of air over the last three centuries, including our modern concern over emissions and climate change. Steven Connor looks at the human relationship with air, both positive and negative. His explorations include the dangers posed by radio atmospherics, poison gas, and haze as well as our continued fascination with effervescence and explosives. Drawing ideas from religion, science, art, literature, and philosophy, A Matter of Air creates a comprehensive history of the human perception of air. Thoroughly researched and written with wit and quirky enthusiasm, the book will appeal to a wide range of general readers interested in the environment, human history, and our most essential aspects of life.
Twenty-six fantasy tales from the 19th century, tracing the genre from its roots in German romanticism to the ghost stories of Henry James. The editor, who prefaces each story, analyzes the resurgence of the fantastic in our day.
Monsieur de Phocas ranks with A Rebours as the summation of the French Decadent Movement. Modelled on The Portrait of Dorian Gray, it drips with evil and certainly would have unpublishable in fin-de-siecle England. 'With Ethel's friends, grotesque, ageing decadents, Phocas for the first time tastes opium. He experiences the pleasure of absolute degradation, and the double pleasure of being both observer and observed, dominant subject and passive object. As the opium takes effect, the naked Javanese dancers at the orgy vanish in a swirling cloud, to be replaced by a dark lamplit street where two thieves carefully saw at a woman's throat with a delicate knifeblade. From this cruel vision, Phocas soars into dizzy flight from which, suddenly, he plunges to destruction, into oozing depths where clinging vampires suck his blood, until he almost swoons into spasms. The mysterious, vicious double is on the threshold of existence: Phocas sees himself as Giles de Retz in the forest of Tiffauges, haunted by obscene desires.' Jennifer Birkett in Sins of the Fathers
Although Gaston Danville was one of the earliest contributors to the French magazine, Mercure de France, considered a voice for the symbolist movement, he regarded himself as one of a new generation of Naturalists, interested in applying the relatively new insights of contemporary psychology to the analysis of human behavior. Danville's short fiction was unique, obsessed with the supposed psychologies of psychology and murder, and the analogies between them. He called his stories "Tales of Beyond," but the beyond to which he referred was that of the Unconscious, to which he believe that all phenomena considered supernatural should now be attributed. The result was some of the most peculiar weird fiction ever produced, which still warrants the interest of connoisseurs of the bizarre. Here are his best eighteen stories (plus an essay), edited, translated, and with notes by Brian Stableford.
A provocative and original history of the scientists and writers, artists and philosophers who took drugs to explore the hidden regions of the mind Until the twentieth century, scientists investigating the effects of drugs on the mind did so by experimenting on themselves. Vivid descriptions of drug experiences sparked insights across the mind sciences, pharmacology, medicine, and philosophy. Accounts in journals and literary fiction inspired a fascinated public to make their own experiments--in scientific demonstrations, on exotic travels, at literary salons, and in occult rituals. But after 1900 drugs were increasingly viewed as a social problem, and the long tradition of self-experimentation began to disappear. From Sigmund Freud's experiments with cocaine to William James's epiphany on nitrous oxide, Mike Jay brilliantly recovers a lost intellectual tradition of drug-taking that fed the birth of psychology, the discovery of the unconscious, and the emergence of modernism. Today, as we embrace novel cognitive enhancers and psychedelics, the experiments of the original psychonauts reveal the deep influence of mind-altering drugs on Western science, philosophy, and culture.
The experience of modernization -- the dizzying social changes that swept millions of people into the capitalist world -- and modernism in art, literature and architecture are brilliantly integrated in this account.
In addition to being a brilliant author, Brian Stableford is an accomplished editor and translator. Here he has selected and translated his choice of the 18 best weird tales and contes cruels by French author Armand Blocq (1870-1933), published under his pseudonym Gaston Danville. Check out Brian’s long and informative Introduction for more information. [Published in paperback as The Anatomy of Love and Murder: Psychoanalytical Fantasies.] Included are: THE DAISY REMEMBRANCE FLAT THE MURDERER THE DEPUTY ILLUSORY CARESSES HOW JACQUES COMMITTED SUICIDE THE CLOCK ADRIFT LISBETH THE DARK ANGEL THE DEAD MAN’S DREAM THE LAMP IN VAIN IN ANIMA VILI MOUSMÉ THE STOLEN HEART THE CINQ-BRAS THE EVOLUTION OF LITERATURE (ESSAY) If you enjoy this ebook, don't forget to search your favorite ebook store for "Wildside Press Megapack" to see more of the 300+ volumes in this series, covering adventure, historical fiction, mysteries, westerns, ghost stories, science fiction -- and much, much more!