The Decadent Bestiary [Paperback]

From the Golden Fly to the Wounded Lion, animal tales of decadence, mystery, and the uncanny.

An original collection of animal stories and poems from fin-de-siècle England and France, selected, translated, and introduced by Jessica Gossling and Sam Kunkel. Bringing together works by forty writers including Michael Field, Remy de Gourmont, Lafcadio Hearn, J. K. Huysmans, Rachilde, and Eric Count Stenbock, this timely anthology explores the inexorable connection between human and animal, from the lion to the ant. Bringing together tales both familiar and largely unknown, some of them translated into English for the first time, The Decadent Bestiary opens a new chapter in the complex story of our relationship with the natural world, showcasing the beasts of beauty and burden that recur in decadent and symbolist writing.Beasts
Wild

• To Androcles’ Lion, Victor Hugo
• The Seal, Iwan Gilkin
• The Rat, Hector Chainaye
• Bats, Jules Renard
• The Lady with the Wolf, Renée Vivien

Domestic

• Pierrot, Guy de Maupassant
• With Dog and Dame: An October Idyll, Aleister Crowley
• The Greyhound, Iwan Gilkin
• The Hound, H. P. Lovecraft
• Sredni Vashtar, Saki
• Three cat poems from Les Fleurs du mal, Charles Baudelaire, translated by Arthur Symons
• The Philosophy of Cats, Stanislas de Guaita

Birds
Land

• Peacocks: A Mood, Olive Custance
• Poem IX, Gustave Kahn
• Ennui, Maurice Maeterlinck
• The White Peacock, William Sharp&lcÂ