Morose Vignettes

Remy de Gourmont

Translated by Brian Stableford

Proses moroses, Remy de Gourmont’s classic collection of prose poems, here presented as Morose Vignettes, in its first English translation, by Brian Stableford, is, like a series of fine charcoal sketches, or a box of neatly cut gems, an exquisite sampling of perfection. Precursory in some ways of surrealism, the pieces contained herein, representing a distilled essence of prose fiction, an osmazome of literature, are brief, flippant and excessively impressionistic. That combination of traits, and the variety of its deployment in the three phases of the text, entitles it to be considered a remarkable book, entitled to consideration as a true work of art, despite its small size.

About the Author
Remy de Gourmont (1858-1915) was the most important literary critic of his era, and his studies of authors involved in the Symbolist Movement, many of them collected in Le Livre des masques (1896) and Le Deuxième livre des masques (1898), provided an invaluable map of its extent and a commentary on its ambitions. He became the principal theorist of Symbolism and Decadence, which he regarded as identical. He was one of the founders of the Mercure de France and its most prolific contributor, developing his distinctively mannered short fiction in its pages. He collaborated with Alfred Jarry in 1893-94 on L’Ymagier, a periodical devoted to Symbolist art extensively trailed in the Mercure, which developed a theory of archetypes similar in many respect to Carl Jung’s. Disfigured by lupus, he became a recluse before the century ended, and his health deteriorated steadily thereafter, although he kept on writing relentlessly while he could.

About the Translator
Brian Stableford has been publishing fiction and non-fiction for fifty years. His fiction includes a series of “tales of the biotech revolution” and a series of metaphysical fantasies featuring Edgar Poe’s Auguste Dupin. He has previously translated for Snuggly Books a number of titles, including The Soul-Drinker and Other Decadent Fantasies by Jean Lorrain, and The Unknown Collaborator and Other Legendary Tales by Victor Joly.

Paperback, 132 pages. Release date, January 12, 2021
ISBN-13: 978-1-64525-047-0
Price: US$13.50