The Inn of Tears

Alice Télot alias “Jacques Fréhel”

Translated by Brian Stableford

“Jacques Fréhel” was the pseudonym of Alice Télot (1861-1918), and the stories in the present volume were published between 1 June 1888 and 18 February 1903 under that pseudonym in various periodicals, though primarily in La Fronde, a feminist newspaper entirely written by women. Compiled and translated into English for the first time by Brian Stableford, this collection of stories and prose poems, previously all but impossible to find, is like a series of deeply intoxicating draughts of a liquor of madness, sorrow, ecstasy and splendor.

Spanning the moods of Naturalism, Symbolism and Decadence, the pieces of the long-forgotten but brilliant Télot range from the starkly tragic to the hallucinatory, from rustic images of then contemporary Normandy to bizarre scenes of mythology and pseudo-history of the “Bretagne” of Druids, bards and early Christian Saints—from the mysterious boulevards of Paris to the peppery precincts of ancient Egypt.

There is every reason why Alice Télot should be included in the quest undertaken by modern feminists to uncover more of the buried heritage of early feminist fiction and The Inn of Tears ought to help give her the credit she deserves for the verve, style and inventiveness of her work as well as its fugitive ideology.

About the Author
Alice Télot (1861-1918), who wrote under the alias of “Jacques Fréhel,” was the author of eight books, five of which were novels and three of which were collections of stories. Though details of her life are scarce, she was said to have been born in Saint-Malo in Brittany, and was from a family of mariners. She was the lover of the anarchist novelist and philosopher Han Ryner and a regular contributor to the feminist journal La Fronde and, despite her book Les Ailes brisées having been awarded the Prix Jules Favre by the Academie Française, her work fell into great neglect and she is almost forgotten today.

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, 302 pages
Release date, February 22, 2022
ISBN-13: 978-1-64525-090-6
Price: US$21.00