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First published in 1880, same year as Edgar Degas' "The Dancing Lesson and Edouard Manet's solo show, these "Parisian Sketches share the Impressionist fascination with the contemporary life of Paris, the exuberant Paris of the Opera Garnier and the Folies-Bergers. Like the striking images of the early Impressionists, "Parisian Sketches is an assault on the visual senses. Composed of a series of intense, meticulously observed literary impressions--of cafe concerts and circus performers, of streetwalkers and hot-chestnut sellers, of forgotten quarters in the grimy, shiny 'City of Light'--"Parisian Sketches recreates Paris with an intimacy and immediacy that confirms Huysmans as one of the masters of 19th century French prose.

Barbara is a Faroese Moll Flanders, a woman of insatiable sexual desire which leads her from one man to another in search of sexual gratification. There is a highly successful Danish feature film of the novel. Jorgen-Frantz Jacobsen's novel combines the action of an old Faroese ballad about a woman who led three clergymen husbands to their destruction and the author's own experience of a woman with whom he was in love, but who proved elusive in the manner of the fictitious Barbara. The novel was unfinished when Jacobsen died, and it was left to, his friend and fellow author, William Heinesen to tie up a small number of loose ends.

Marie Grubbe is loosely based on the true story of a Danish noble woman of the same name. A wealthy heiress she married the illegitimate son of Frederik The Third of Denmark and Norway. The relationship was unhappy and violent, and, after she had had several affairs, her husband divorced her allowing her to keep her substantial dowry. For the next two years, Marie Grubbe travelled around Europe with her brother-in-law and lover spending the fortune her mother had left her. On her return her father married her to a local nobleman but this relationship too was unhappy. At the age of forty-six, she finally met the man who was going to be her companion for the rest of her life: a coachman more than twenty years her junior. A wonderful historical novel and one of the jewels of Danish 19-th century fiction

W. Glyn Jones' masterful translation allows us to read in English for the first time one of the neglected classics of Scandinavian Literature. Ida Brandt is the classic outsider. Not acceptable to the Danish aristocratic circle she was brought up around and too moneyed for her nursing colleagues at the hospital. She is good looking and gentle, generous and kind and her trusting nature is betrayed by the people around her. Herman Bang takes us into Ida's world, he does not comment, let alone criticise and leaves the reader to judge. It is a novel ahead of its time in its impressionistic, almost cinematic style.

The Last of the Vostyachs won two literary prizes in Italy: The Premio Campiello and The Premio Stresa. As a child, Ivan and his father work as forced labourers in a mine in Siberia, the father having committed some minor offence against the regime. Ivan's father is then murdered in front of his young son, after which Ivan -- who is a Vostyach, an imaginary ethnic group of whose language he is the last remaining speaker -- is struck dumb by what he has witnessed. Some twenty years later the guards desert their posts and Ivan walks free, together with the other inmates. Guided by some mysterious power, he returns to the region he originally came from...

Pascal Bruckner's memoir reads like a novel, a Bildungsroman which charts his journey from pious Catholic child to leading philosopher and writer on French culture. The key figure in Bruckner's life is his father, a virulent anti-Semite, who voluntarily went to work in Germany during the Second World War. He is a violent man who beats his wife. The young Bruckner soon reacts against his father and his revenge is to become his polar opposite, even to the point of being happy to be called a "Jewish thinker", which he is not. "My father helped me to think better by thinking against him. I am his defeat." Despite this opposition, he remains tied to his father to the very end. He has other "fathers", men such as Sartre, Vladimir Jankelevitch and Roland Barthes who fostered his philosophical development, and describes his friendship with his "philosophical twin brother", Alain Finkielkraut. A great read for anyone interested in the 1960s, the intellectual life of France and the father and son relationship.

Heinesen's novels always contain the portrait of what might be termed a "good" woman: Simona in Windswept Dawn, Eliana in The Lost Musicians, Liva in The Black Cauldron. Here, however, the "good" woman, Antonia, is raised to mythological status as the representative of motherhood, the bearer of life as has existed from the dawn of time. This portrayal is placed against the description of a limited circle of ordinary and unprepossessing figures in a small town, much of it as experienced through the eyes of Antonia's infant illegitimate son from his very earliest days until he is some five years of age. In contrast to Antonia, there is Trine, an essentially tragic figure, whose tragedy to a large extent is the direct result of her narrow religious beliefs and her resultant refusal to follow her natural instincts and to take the chance of happiness and the natural fulfilment of life when it is offered to her. Religion is in this novel portrayed exclusively in negative terms in stark contrast to the world of nature, the bearer of life, the supreme representative of which is Antonia.

Hans Cadzand's father dies when he is an infant and he becomes the centre of his mother's life. As he grows up from a pretty child to a serious young man with deep religious convictions, she hopes she will remain the focus of his life. She sees his desire to enter holy orders as a threat to their life together and tries to keep him near her by marrying him off to the daughter of her closest friend. This plan founders on the rock of his 'vocation', but then Mevr. Cadzand engages the beautiful and experienced Ursula as housemaid. This long nouvelle is supplemented by shorter pieces from the collection Le Rouet des Brumes, brief episodes of love and death in characteristically atmospheric settings.

"First published in Portugal in 1880/1925"--T.p. verso.

Immortalised in Christopher Isherwood's classic novel Mr Norris Changes Trains, Gerald Hamilton was the real-life model for the seedy but beguiling Mr Norris. Isherwood put him on the literary map but he was on other maps already, including those of police forces across Europe, and he was interned in Brixton prison during both world wars as a threat to national security. A Communist agent in the Thirties, Hamilton later drifted to the right and put his faith in the "sacred cause" of absolute monarchy. Despite his somewhat grotesque appearance he had a fruity charm, and he knew everyone from the last Tsar and Guy Burgess to Sir Oswald Mosley and Aleister Crowley, who kept tabs on him for the Special Branch when they shared a flat in Weimar Berlin. Hamilton never lost his impeccable Edwardian manners or his love of wine and food, whatever life threw at him in the way of personal and global crises. "We live in stirring times," he liked to say, "tea-stirring times." Written in the 1970s, the late Tom Cullen's biography of this louche and dubious character was long thought lost, but the manuscript has been traced by Phil Baker, biographer of Dennis Wheatley and Austin Osman Spare, who contributes an introduction, 'The Importance of Being Gerald'.

The Dedalus Book of Lithuanian Literature attempts to reflect the transition of Lithuanian literature since the beginning of the twentieth century, when Lithuania was still an agrarian and colonized country on the margins of Europe, to its present modern and post-modernist phase. Lithuanian literature was suppressed in the nineteenth century by the Russians but by the eve of WW II was flourishing again. A new Russian occupation reversed this and led to a Soviet-style socialist realism in fiction. The last decades of the twentieth century saw the rise of a new generation of writers who dealt with Lithuania's history and the contemporary world. The Dedalus Book of Lithuanian Literature features the classic authors and the authors who have only recently come to prominence like Herkus Kuncius or Giedra Radvilaviciute.

First published in 1964 The Good Hope won The Nordic Prize for Literature. It is the first English translation of one of the greatest novels in the Danish language. . The Good Hope is an epistolary novel based on the life of the Reverend Lucas Debes, a larger than life character called Peder Ba, rresen in the novel. It tells a story of brutal oppression, poverty and terrible diseases, but also of resistance and of having the courage of one's convictions. It is a dramatic fantasy in which Heinesen's customary themes -- the struggle against evil, sectarianism, superstition and oppression --emerge on a higher plane, set against the backcloth of the Faroe Islands in the 1690s. The Good Hope is a masterpiece which took 40 years to write.

The Dedalus Book of Estonian Literature offers a wide-ranging selection of fiction from the end of the nineteenth century until the present day, including work by Estonias classic and most important contemporary authors. This is the most important selection of Estonian fiction to have appeared in English and will be essential reading for anyone wanting to gain an idea of Estonian Literature and for the many American visitors to Estonia. Estonia is one of the smallest and least populated countries in the European Union. It has a population of about 1.4 million. For most of its history it has been part of its larger neighbours, Sweden and Russia. It regained its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.It is really in the nineteenth- century that Estonian Literature develops and a prose tradition established. This anthology features work by significant authors in this period such as Eduard Vilde and Juhan Liiv and extends to the modern day with contributions from leading contemporary authors such as Peeter Sauter and Eeva Park. Estonias most famous and widely-translated author is Jaan Kross, who should have become the first Estonian author to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. He is represented in the anthology by Uncle (1990).

This is the eighth volume in Dedaluss highly acclaimed European literary fantasy series and follows volumes from Austrian, Dutch, Finnish, Greek, Polish, Portuguese and Spanish. During the nineteenth-century, Belgian literature was still largely written in the language of education, French. Then the Flemings, who inhabit the northern half of Belgium, became aware of the value of their own language, whose standardised form is, to all intents and purposes, Dutch. Modern Flemish literature was born. This anthology incorporates fantasy stories from the early twentieth century to the present day. The types of fantasy are various: horror, mysticism and magical realism being the dominant ones. One of the early authors is Felix Timmermans who started out with horror stories, but later ended up writing his inimitable Vitalist novels. Two magic realist authors stand out: Johan Daisne and Hubert Lampo. And horror is well represented by several authors including Hugo Claus, Hugo Raes and Ward Ruyslinck - all household names in Flanders. Interesting new authors include Annelies Verbeke and Peter Verhelst.

Gustav Meyrink is one of the most important and interesting authors of early 20th-century German Literature. To establish his reputation in the English-speaking world Dedalus has translated his five novels plus a collection of his short stories and published the first ever English-language biography of Meyrink. Now is the time to produce an overview of Meyrink in a single volume. The Dedalus Meyrink Reader has excerpts from all the translated books and a whole section of hitherto untranslated material, including the stories from the collection Fledermuse and autobiographical articles. This volume is perfect companion for both the Meyrink scholar and the first-time Meyrink reader, containing as it does the whole gamut of Meyrinks writing from his love of the bizarre, the grotesque and the macabre to the spine-chilling occult tales and his quest to know what is on the Other Side of the Mirror. Novelist, satirist, translator of Charles Dickens, dandy, man-about-time, fencer, rower, banker and mystic seer, there are many, sometimes contradictory aspects to Gustav Meyrink, who must also be the only novelist to have challenged a whole army regiment to a duel. He has left behind a unique body of work, which can be sampled and enjoyed in The Dedalus Meyrink Reader.

Avatars and acolytes Byron, De Quincey, Wilde and more, are here, all at their unwholesome best. English Decadence was not a polite response to French invention, but the hothouse blossoming of long, indigenous researches into the perverse. Like Imperial Rome, England could hardly subdue and rule the globe without becoming corrupt. The Romantics tried rebellion, but amid Victorian industry, terminally-fatigued Decadents concerned themselves with cultivating their addiction to luxury and sensation. This is the most wide-ranging, important collection of English decadent writing ever published.

The story revolves round the angelic and mysterious hermaphrodite Seraphita who seems to inspire love in all she meets. The battle for her affection leads Wilf and Minna past earthly knowledge and into the deeper mysteries of life. Set against the rugged landscape of 18th century Norway, Seraphita is the most unusual and bizarre novel in Balzac's Comedie Humaine.

A complex and ambitious novel which centres on the life of the Elizabethan magus, John Dee, in England, Poland and Prague, as it intertwines past and present, dreams and visions, myth and reality in a world of the occult, culminating in the transmutation of physical reality into a higher spiritual existence. John Dee, through his 20th century descendant, is led by the Green Angel to the 'Other Side of the Mirror'. From the erotically alluring Assja Shotokalungin (in all her incarnations), the pliant Jane, the mischievous Queen Elizabeth 1 to the earless charlatan Kelley, the truly grotesque Bartlett Greene and the sinister Emperor Rudolph1, John Dee heads a cast which lingers in the mind long after the book has been put down.

The Architect of Ruins is considered one of the masterpieces of 20th century German fiction. An archetypal Dedalus novel with its literary game-playing and story-within-a-story technique. It has the labyrinthine brilliance of Robert Irwin's The Arabian Nightmare and Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose. Four men led by the Architect of Ruins construct an Armagedon shelter, in the shape of a giant cigar, so that when the end of the world comes they can enter eternity in the right mood, whilst playing a Schubert string quartet. They amuse themselves by telling stories, which take on a life of their own, with walk on parts for Faust, Don Juan, da Ponte, and G.K. Chesterton etc as the narrative flashes back and forth between the Dark Ages and the Modern Day, like a literary Mobius strip. Although for European readers it will call to mind Jan Potocki's The Saragossa Manuscript, for English readers the wit and humour of The Architect of Ruins will make it read like a 20th century sequel to Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy.

"An intricate, finely crafted and polished tale, The Weeping Woman brings magic-realism to the dimly lit streets of Prague. Through the squares and alleys a woman walks, the embodiment of human pity, sorrow, death. Everyone she passes is touched by her, and Germain skilfully creates an intense mood and feel in her attempt to produce a spiritual map of Prague." The Observer The figure of this bereft woman develops into a memorable symbol: her sudden appearances - on a bridge,in a square, in a room - haunt the book like history, moved to tears." Robert Winder in The Independent "a haunting classic" Madeleine Kingsley in She Magazine

Cruelty, corruption, sensuality, desperation and death: the sensationalism and morbid pessimism that characterized French decadence in the late nineteenth century quickly attracted converts throughout Europe, including Russia. Here are the horrifying, dramatic and erotic short stories and poetry, most of which have never before been translated into English, by the most decadent Russian writers. These explore the depths of the unconscious, as their characters experience sadism, masochism, rape, murder, suicide, and, in a story by Gippius, even passionate love for the dead. * describes the spread of madnessand the collapse of advanced, but decadent, civilizations that indulge in refined pleasures * Andreyev portrays the collapse of all moral values on a personal level in his famous story The Abyss Femmes fatales lure men to destruction, but the most seductive enchantress in the anthology is death itself.

Writers have been killing themselves for centuries. From Petronius in ancient Rome to the 20th Century Japanese novelist Yukio Mishima, writers, more than any other kind of artist, have taken their own lives in an extraordinary number of ways. With bullets, poison, drugs and swords, poets, playwrights, novelists and philosophers have sent themselves off into the big sleep. Others, one step shy of that last exit, have made great literature about the urge to self-destruction. For the first time, Gary Lachman investigates the many links between self-death and the written word, bringing together an unusual gallery of literary greats and a host of other fatal characters. Typically for Dedalus, the covers gorgeous. Sasha Selavie in QX International Dead Letters ultimately proves to be at once stimulating and thought-provoking and the section devoted to various suicidal writings is most diverting. Peter Burton in One80 Reviews

Against Nature is Huysmans's great fin-de-sicle novel anticipating many strains of modernism in its appreciation of Baudelaire, Moreau, Redon, Mallarm and Poe. A novel like no other, it features a hero, des Esseintes, a neurasthenic aristocrat who has turned his back on the vulgarity of modern life and retreated to an isolated country villa. Here, accompanied only by two silent servants, he pursues his obsessions with exotic flowers, rare gems, and complex perfumes, embarking on a series of increasingly strange aesthetic experiments, starting with the decision to give his giant pet tortoise a jewel-encrusted shell.