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Words are an obscure form of consciousness. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . we are always left with blank spaces. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  question marks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  gaps! Language leaves us up a hill without a creek. This is the explanation!

Presented here for the first time in a single volume, is the entire corpus of short fiction by Edward Heron-Allen, one of England's most intriguing, and unnecessarily obscure, authors. From "The Suicide of Sylvester Gray," the novella which was an inspiration for The Portrait of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde, a friend of Heron-Allen's, to "The Cheetah Girl," an outrageous masterpiece of biological science fiction, the present collection is a tour de force of the elegant, the bizarre, and the unmentionable.With a total of thirty tales, the five volumes contained herein, many of which have previously only been obtainable for exorbitant prices, are now finally available in a proper format for connoisseurs, and the unafraid.

There was something about Claus Laufenburg that drew them, mothers and daughters, princes and paupers, spicy Spaniards and jet-set Swedes, to him. Was it his dangerous swagger, his arts and skills of passion, or the glittering universe of his gigantic collection of Rumanian limited edition hardbacks?In these five stories of reckless lust and steaming blood, filthy talk and degenerate banter, by five of the boldest voices in the New Pleasant Movement, the reader is invited to explore the ins and outs of one of Germany's most beloved bibliophiles as he moves through the world of physical matter. The book that Hollywood refused. Contents:Quentin S. Crisp: Who Is Claus Laufenburg?Damian Murphy: One Thousand Sleeping Souls Lie Best Unknowing and DistressedJames Champagne: DreamachineJustin Isis: Claus and the Transgressive EnglishmanBrendan Connell: Die geheime Kraft des Sex

Gathered together and translated into English for the first time by Brian Stableford, the current volume contains three bizarre novellas of the paranormal by Gilbert-Augustin Thierry (1843-1915), originally published in periodicals of the day. Written when the author was heavily involved with the French Occult Revival, these feverish tales of reincarnation and redemption are prime examples of an intriguing and much-ignored subspecies of supernatural fiction, and, plunging readers directly into an imaginative environment of suspended disbelief, lack neither in narrative verve nor flamboyance.

Fards and Poisons, originally published in 1903 and here made available for the first time in English in a translation by Brian Stableford, is one of the more eccentric works of the ever-eccentric Jean Lorrain. Defying the standard narrative expectations of short stories, the items in this volume might be seen as a series of gossipy character sketches, of actresses and mystics, gigolos and dowagers, of an entire rogues gallery of fin de siècle types, which help explain how the author gained a reputation for corrupting public morals by literary means. Resembling fragments excised from a kind of endless series of conversations, the result is a strange literary collage that is perhaps the most quintessential of Lorrain's works: the slice of his life that pins his own literary persona most precisely, like a lepidopterist's long pin.Included in the current volume, and for the first time republished since its initial appearance in Le Journal, is also the short story "Victim", for which Lorrain was disastrously sued, and convicted of, libel, the court imposing a massive punitive fine on the author and sentencing him to two months imprisonment, though the rulings were later overturned.

"O that fine octagonal face of his-the great dark thoughtful eyes-the straight broad nose pointed at its low tip-the wide firm mouth with its full lower lip, curbed by the very thin bow of the upper-the very square strong jaw-the expression insolent because modest, imperious because shy,-but a face which could smile. And O the robust and generous young form, noble and opulent in contour-the ardent force restrained of him. To me, from the beginning, he was something apart, an individual whom one must either abhor, or adore-nothing else-and, as I saw him close for the first time, staring at him quite unreservedly, I knew what my feelings were."Here, presented for the first time in paperback format, is Amico di Sandro, the unfinished novel by Frederick Rolfe, a.k.a. Baron Corvo, dealing with the rambunctious life of Sandro Botticelli.An eccentric tale of art and Renaissance times for the connoisseur.

Here, presented for the first time in paperback format, and limited edition hardcover, is an unabridged edition of Count Eric Stenbock's third and last collection of poetry, which was originally published in 1893, in a very limited number of copies, and which is now extremely scarce.

Sentimental Stories by Guatemalan born Enrique Gómez Carrillo, man of letters, duelist and dandy, originally published in 1900 and here presented in English for the first time in a translation by Jessica Sequeira, is an exquisite selection of nine tales that covers the ground from desire to insanity, fulfillment in erotic love to suffering in intense anguish. In these stories of solitary figures struggling with incorrigible sentimentality, we meet an aspiring poet who becomes obsessed with what he believes to be Cleopatra's wig, an eccentric doctor who sells a cure for artistic enthusiasm to fictional writers and artists, and a military man who suffers from jealousy due to an anonymous letter, all told with the light touch of a writer who found beauty in surfeit and exaggeration, dissolution and extravagance.

Long out of print in English, and here offered for the first time in a restored format, The Twilight of the Gods, Élémir Bourges' acknowledged masterpiece, was originally published in March, 1884, just two months before J.-K. Huysmans' groundbreaking À rebours. Both novels at once laid the groundwork for the Decadent Movement, and presented a striking challenge to Naturalism by, instead of depicting common existence, offering case studies of exceptional, extravagant beings. In Bourges' highly aesthetic work, we follow Charles d'Este, Duke of Blankenburg, who, along with his eccentric family, is exiled to Paris, where his excessive, luxurious lifestyle and the Wagnerian fate that follows him are like a chandelier falling from the sky.

Here, presented in English in a long-belated translation by Brian Stableford, is Isis, the first novel of the acclaimed author of Contes cruels, Villiers de l'Isle-Adam. Deserving to be reckoned as one of the foundation-stones of Decadent prose fiction, redolent with echoes of Byron and Poe, reconfigured in the Baudelairean manner, and flamboyant with Gautieresque elements, this book is a tour de force of extravagant implication and esthetic dexterity: a work of peculiar genius.In its vaulting ambitions, its quirky mannerisms, its philosophical posturing and its lush descriptions, Isis is certainly a tale given to excess, but that excess is the essence of the endeavor, the wand of its enchantment.

Originally published in 1898, From a Faraway Land, here translated into English for the first time by Brian Stableford, is one of the quintessential collections of Symbolist short fiction, by Remy de Gourmont, one of France's greatest writers.With their sophisticated understatement, and hybridization of the narrative techniques and strategies developed by the suppliers of newspaper fiction with those of Baudelairean prose poetry, these stories employ symbolism in its most extreme form, that of allegory, and are unquestionably among the author's most refined accomplishments.

"I am neither a roué nor a degenerate; yet there are days when certain visions rise so definitely before me and I am a prey to such violent desires, that if, hitherto, I have been able to resist their attraction, it is impossible for me to say whether, an hour hence, I shall be able to do so. At other times, I feel strangely weary, as though I had just accomplished some gigantic task. I feel that my bones are broken, my muscles torn, and it is when I wake up that I feel this-when I wake up, after eight hours' sleep and rest, following no excess and troubled by no dreams. . . . I also have fits of inexplicable rage; of fury that would urge me to any crime; preconceived dislikes; I am so sensitive and excitable, that a word, a gesture, are sufficient to unhinge me: I suffer almost physically from all these things."