recent acquisitions

The Weird: a compendium of strange and dark stories

The Girls by Henry Montherlant

The Angels of perversity

Strange Tales

A bunch of CDs from The Tallis Scholars
The Beauty Queen and The Fancy Dancer by Patricia Nell Warren
Two People by Donald Windham
The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall
And The Boy Who Followed Ripley by Patricia Highsmith

The Living are few, the Dead Many, Hans Henny Jahn
De Nerval's Selected Writings.

Mr Fortune by Sylvia Townsend Warner
The Real Life of Sebastian Knight by Vladimir Nabokov
A Gilded Lapse of Time by Giertrud Schackenberg
Codex: Daemonhunters from Warhammer 40K

The Kingdom of the Wicked by Anthony Burgess
Moravagine by Blaise Cendrars
Sutter's Gold by Blaise Cendrars
Goose of Hermogenes by Itheil Colquhoun
The Creator by Mynona

German Myths and Legends by Donald A. MacKenzie
Humor Horror and the Supernatural: 22 stories by Saki
The Doyle Diary by Michael Baker

Chin P'ing Mei, the chinese decameron

The fetish and other stories by Moravia

Found The Drug & Other Stories and The Simon Iff Stories & Other Works, a 2 volume collection of short works by Aleister Crowley. I also found a lesser-known short work by Anthony Powell, O, How The Wheel Becomes It!, a novel about literary failure and academic scandal.

>10 kswolff:

Those two volumes are theoretically Crowley's "complete" short fiction. My favorites there are the stories in Golden Twigs.

Arvida by Samuel Archibald -- "Like a Proust-obsessed Cormac McCarthy ..." SOLD! This looks exciting.

Found a vintage copy of Pleasures and Regrets by Marcel Proust, with a Preface by Anatole France

Sam Dunn is Dead by Bruno Corra which was published in F.T. Marinetti's Edizioni Futuriste. Basically a futurist novel of black humour. The following caught my sight in the introduction:

"Sam Dunn, a Parisian with an English name, the key protagonist in a novel set in the future (between 1945 and 1952), is a figure from the 1890s, and aesthete, a snob, a drug-using neurasthenic, a decadent, and above all a poet of ridiculous elegies. In many ways his character reflects the history of Futurism, with particular reference perhaps to Marinetti himself, who began his literary career writing, in French, overwrought Symbolism poetry."

Just got in a review copy of Priestess of Morphine: the lost writings of Marie-Madeleine in the time of Nazis, an anthology of poetry, novellas, etc. by a bisexual Jewish woman who married a Prussian officer and died in a Nazi sanatorium. Another scholarly edition of drug abuse, rapacious sexuality, fantasy, oblivion, and ecstasy from the trouble-makers at Feral House

It is wonderful to have a publishing house that shoots out sensational volumes of perversity and violence, displaying a reckless, gleeful disregard for peevish, mealy-mouthed bourgeois proprieties. I'd rather read Marie-Madeleine than waste my time with the likes of Jonathan Franzen and Marilynne Robinson -- Sure, Gilead is a quiet tour de force, just not a lot of fun.

Adam is a national treasure.

Purchased The Friends of Eddie Coyle by George V. Higgins, described as "the poet of Boston sleaze," and Submission by Michel Houellebecq. But I probably won't be jumping immediately into that. I think I'll ease my way into Houellebecq by reading The Elementary Particles

Private Life by Josep Maria de Sagarra by Archipelago Books looks pretty interesting. I'll give it a little review once I read it.

Private Life holds up a mirror to the moral corruption in the interstices of the Barcelona high society Sagarra was born into. Boudoirs of demimonde tramps, card games dilapidating the fortunes of milquetoast aristocrats - and how they scheme to conceal them - fading manors of selfish scions, and back rooms provided by social-climbing seamstresses are portrayed in vivid, sordid, and literary detail.
The novel, practically a roman-à-clef for its contemporaries, was a scandal in 1932. The 1960's edition was bowdlerized by Franco's censors. Part Lampedusa, part Genet, this translation will bring an essential piece of 20th-century European literature to the English-speaking public.

Young Once and In the Cafe of Lost Youth by Patrick Modiano
Great Tales of Terror and the Supernatural by Herbert Wise

Recently acquired The Hierarchies of Cuckoldry and Bankruptcy by Charles Fourier. A lazy joke about Donald Trump's ruined marriages and string of failed businesses will be added later.

I am currently reading Robert Irwin's new book Wonders Will Never Cease. It is everything I hoped it would be. Highly recommended!

New Robert Irwin? Wishlisted!

>20 kswolff:

I didn't know the title, and at first I thought it couldn't be that Charles Fourier. But it is. Nice.

>21 DavidX:

It was only $8 new from multiple vendors online, so I've ordered a copy.

The Twenty Days of Turin by Giorgio De Maria, the Italian cult classic about a town experiencing collective psychosis. Recently translated into English and available for the first time.

Decadence: A Literary Anthology selected by Jon Crabb and published by the British Library (Touchstones not working).

>26 housefulofpaper:

Appropriately, the book's printed in Bohemia (well, the Czech Republic...).

Bend Sinister by Vladimir Nabokov
Each Man in His Darkness by Julien Green
Germine Lacerteux by the Goncourt Brothers
The Yellow Sofa by Eca de Queiros

And I received an early copy of Ernesto by Umberto Saba, newly translated into English via the good people at NYRB Classics.

Hidden Witchery, by Nigel Tourneur. And I'm mentioning this mainly to cast for out for anyone who might know the identity of the pseudonymous author. The illustrator, named as Will Mein, is probably William Gordon Mein (4 April 1868 - 1939). I wonder if Tourneur might be Maclaren Mein (born Roxburgh, Scotland: 1872, died Essex: 1932), who was known to write under various pseudonyms (Patrick Vaux, for instance). Any thoughts ... out there?

The Voynich Manuscript by Raymond Clemens (Editor). This is the first time a full-color facsimile edition has been available to the public.

The one that got away....

I asked after this book in an ad published online by the Friends of the Jefferson-Madison Regional Library, in Charlottesville, VA (it was one of about 40 books on a list of "Rare and Valuable Books" posted for the organization's fundraiser sale). I was told the books were available for pick up in person, but not via online or postal payment. I made the 2 hour drive south and, handing over $200, was told by the book sale manager that he had revisited the item after our conversation and decided he had under-priced it and pulled it from the sale. Sleazy scoundrel.

On the upside, the trees along the route to that clogged and poky little town were vibrantly green.

.

For what it's worth, and it's not much, I think JMRL owe you an apology of the first magnitude, i.e. wringing of hands and supine grovelling to the point where you just have to tell them to stop.

It's not worth a thing. But it feels good, right?

Poems by Oscar Wilde, Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1882 (second printing?).; John Davidson, Poems and Ballads, with tipped-in inscription by the author. Central PA is a great place to browse (I also found antique cast-iron cross bookends). If you are ever in Lancaster, Dogstar Books is a paradise:

https://www.facebook.com/DogStarBooks/

The Vampyre and other tales of the macabre by John Polidori and A Savage War of Peace by Alistair Horne

Found both at Downtown Books in Milwaukee:

http://urbanmilwaukee.com/2015/08/10/city-business-downtown-books/

It has since relocated, but Merlin the cat still roams the stacks.

Dear all,
I am currently hugely enjoying 'Vestal Fire' by Compton Mackenzie in which he pokes an almost loving fun at the snobs and decadents of Capri in the early 1900s.

Most of the characters in the book are based on real people and the whole book revolves around the the arrival on the island of Count Marsac (based on d'Adelswärd-Fersen) and the chaos that ensues.

Its a lot of fun.

J

Vestal Fire has been on my reading list for some time. I meant to read it after finishing Norman Douglas' novel of Capri exiles, South Wind.

Recently purchased The Orient-Express by Gregor von Rezzori Von Rezzori writes with a wonderfully ornate self-conscious prose reminiscent of Robert Musil and Joris-Karl Huysmans Not a Decadent writer, but a spiritual successor of the movement.

And a couple Ezra Pound-related titles: The Literary Essays of Ezra Pound and The Pound Era by Hugh Kenner.

I just finished reading Robert Irwin's Wonders Will Never Cease and posted my review.

Great review! I enjoyed the book immensely.

Dare I say it? I had become a little bored with Decadence and the morbid. However, two recent purchases have restored my faith in the perverse and obscure. Coincidentally, both deal with the highest forms of low life in the low countries.

Firstly Monsieur De Bougrelon by Jean Lorrain from the relatively new Spurl press. A small masterpiece of late Decadence, pushing the style beyond self-parody, verging on Surrealism. Reminisces of an impossible dandy.

Secondly Spells by Michel de Ghelderode. A lavish and thoroughly annotated translation in a big trade paperback format, making an significant addition to Wakefield's already impressive list. Tales of madness, obsession and mystery in the gloom and fog of pre-war Belgium. Everything I had wanted from the stories of Jean Ray.

Can't recommend either of these highly enough to followers of this list.

>41 Soukesian:

Your touchstone on Spells is a bit off. (:

The new works-search algorithm makes accurate touchstones a lot easier now, and it's worth checking what comes up on the right side of the message box while you compose it, and selecting from "others" if needed.

>41 Soukesian: Also newly published by the Wakefield Press, the complete text of The King in the Golden Mask, by Marcel Schwob (the others of similar title - Carcanet, Tartarus - are samplings from several collections).

It was very nice to receive both Spells and Disagreeable Tales in English. I can now continue to be too lazy to try the French that I bought and never read (now if someone would only get to the Latin American modernistas - Palma, Castillo, Casal, Turcios, Rebolledo, etc...). Ghelderode's play L'Escurial is still my favorite of all his works (those I've read).

For madness, obsession and mystery, you might continue on the down-bound train with The Complete Stories of Leonora Carrington, published by Dorothy: a publishing project. It starts off with a tale of a spoiled young lady of wealthy family sending her pet hyena in her stead down to her parents' dinner party... wearing her dress and the face of her nanny that the hyena has recently killed.

For lighter refreshment - a nihilist's beach read: Anthony Powell's early novel of empty-hearted, empty-headed urban slouchers, Afternoon Men. It's as awful and decadent as it gets (though not at all gothic, or dripping of absinthe), and very humorous (if you agree with the statement that nothing is more amusing than unhappiness).

Good to hear from you, gentlemen!

>42 paradoxosalpha: Thanks, fixed that! Working from a cellphone, and, hey, I got de Ghelderode's name right without checking!

>43 Randy_Hierodule: Thanks for the tips. The Carrington collection is most definitely on my list. I have Down Below and The Hearing Trumpet but the short stories have been elusive and pricey up until now.

>44 Soukesian:

Since you fixed yours, I "unfixed" mine, because I thought it was funny.

>43 Randy_Hierodule:

Ah, Carrington! I am a fan.

Also picked up Occult Paris by Tobias Churton for a recent trip to that city. The discursive style makes for dense reading, though its sheer eccentricity can be amusing, and I've only got about a third of the way through. Provides interesting context for contemporary art and writing and that which followed, but I can't say I'm finding I like various characters described more as I get to know them better.

I find that I share Churton's interests, but the factual content of his work is ... unreliable.

>47 paradoxosalpha: I suspected as much. Something about his manner!

Speaking of the Churton book, I had nearly forgotten to post this: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/fin-de-siecle-satanism-in-bohemian-paris-french-d...

Sponsor is The Last Tuesday Society: http://www.thelasttuesdaysociety.org/

I'm thinking of overcoming my basic inclination to fossilize, and purchase the ticket - more for the location than anything else: London, and Viktor Wynd's Museum of Curiosities.

I was at Victor Wynds last week.
Certainly worth going to see the current (small, but always wonderful) Austin Osman Spare show and of course the curiosities downstairs.
J

At the risk of being accused of 'bumping the thread' as they say in modern parlance, I am ALSO reading the Churton boon and agree with all that has been said above. Though he appears, and I am sure is, very knowledgeable about some things some of it seems a little more shaky.
I am also about 1/3rd of the way through and think the ground was better covered in a wider context by Christopher McIntosh's 'Eliphas Levi and the French Occult Revival'- still a great read 40+ years after its first publication. Every few years I have a purge of books to make room for more, and that was one of the few I had to rebuy as I missed it so much.
J

>51 Siderealpress:

McIntosh is solid. His Rose Cross and the Age of Reason is also a winner.

Will note McIntosh for further investigation.

Just arrived today, Powers of Darkness, an Icelandic variant publication of Dracula, freely translated to the extent of introducing new characters and themes, though some of these appear to derive from Stoker's original notes of the model. Fascinating stuff. I opened for a quick look and didn't surface for an hour!

The Goetia, with an introduction by Aleister Crowley
Collected Poems of Samuel Beckett
Apocalypse by DH Lawrence
Biedermeyer by Hans Ottomeyer
Bad Money by Kevin Phillips

>54 kswolff: The Goetia, with an introduction by Aleister Crowley

Which 'un? The Weiser edition with the Hymenaeus Beta apparatus? A pretty deLaurence hardcover?

I love D.H. Lawrence's Apocalypse (and the fact that I can now touchstone it painlessly).

55: Yes, it is the Weiser edition with the lovely illustrations. And a softcover.

I'll have to check out Lawrence's "Apocalypse," since I enjoyed Women in Love and Lady Chatterley's Lover, along with his passionate, bombastic literary criticism.

>56 kswolff:

I think that Weiser edition has only been issued in softcover, alas. It's the best research copy, as far as I'm concerned. Others are superior as stage props.

57: "Others are superior as stage props."

(Cue lazy topical political joke about Russian hackers and red state election returns.)

On an unrelated note, I received a copy of Island of Point Nemo by Jean-Marie Blas de Robles. Here's the synopsis (emphasis added):

"A stolen diamond and three right feet, wearing shoes of a non-existent brand, that wash ashore in Scotland set into motion the first plot of Island of Point Nemo, a rollicking Jules Verne-like adventure narrative that crosses continents and oceans, involves multilingual codes, a world-famous villain, and three eccentrically loopy detectives.

Running parallel is the story of B@bil Books, an e-reader factory in France filled with its own set of colorful characters, including the impotent Dieumercie and his randy wife, who will stop at nothing—including a suspect ritual involving bees—to fix his “problem,” and their abusive boss Wang-li Wong, obsessed with carrier pigeons and spying on his employees.

With the humor of a Jasper Fforde novel, and the structure of a Haruki Murakami one, Island of Point Nemo is a literary puzzle and grand testament to the power of storytelling—even in our digital age."

Not sure if the Goetia will be used in that case.

Oh yes. Those DeLaurence Goetia editions are pretty. I love mine. It's hilarious that DeLaurence never updated the copyright date so versions of their goetia printed in the 70s are often sold as being rom "1896" lol!

State and Revolution by V. I. Lenin
Barbary Shore by Norman Mailer

A delightfully mixed bag from a local used bookstore:

The Child by Jules Valles -- Turns out it is the first volume of a trilogy.
The Poetic Achievement of Ezra Pound by Michael Alexander
Summer in Termuren by Louis Paul Boon -- This is a sequel to Chapel Road
DeGaulle: the Rebel and DeGaulle: the Ruler by Jean Lacouture -- One of the titans of French history.

This was one of my favorite shops over the years. It's gone now, leaving, to my thought, only one bookstore (with regular hours) worth traveling to in the Washington DC area. Couldn't think of any other place for it:

https://vimeo.com/111160161

Axel's Castle by Edmund Wilson
The Russian Symbolist Theatre by Michael Greene
The Dancers at the End of Time by Michael Moorcock -- "In this brilliant homage to the golden 1890s of Wilde, Beardsley and the fin-de-siecle decadents, The Dancers at the End of Time is satire at its sharpest and most colorful."