Princesses of Darkness and Other Exotica

When Jean Lorrain (1855-1906) was recruited to the stable of writers assembled by Catulle Mendès to supply L'Écho de Paris with material on a weekly basis, in July 1890, he joined in readily with the experimental spirit of that enterprise, exploring various narrative strategies that could be employed in fitting work to slots that varied in length between 1,000 and 2,000 words. The contributions to the paper that he signed with his own name were soon outnumbered by the items that he signed "Raitif de la Bretonne," in honor of the prolifically innovative Nicolas-Edmé Restif de la Bretonne (1734-1806), most of whose publications had appeared without the royal warrant necessary prior to the 1789 Revolution for works to be printed and sold legally.

 

Presented here, for the first time in English or any other language, are sixteen of the pieces Lorrain wrote under the "Raitif de la Bretonne," by-line, collected and translated by Brian Stableford, the contents of the present volume partaking in the same meticulously perverse point of view that were the author's unique literary hallmark, thus performing the valuable function of offering readers an eccentric sampling of the his heretofore "lost" work.