{"title":"Books by Joris-Karl Huysmans","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"9780140447637","title":"Against Nature","description":"\u003cb\u003eThe infamous inspiration for the novel which slowly corrupts Oscar Wilde's Dorian Gray\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eis translated by Robert Baldick with an introduction by Patrick McGuinness in Penguin Classics.   A wildly original fin-de-siècle novel, Against Nature contains only one character. Des Esseintes is a decadent, ailing aristocrat who retreats to an isolated villa where her indulges his taste for luxury and excess. Veering between nervous excitability and debilitating ennui, he gluts his aesthetic appetites with classical literature and art, exotic jewels (with which he fatally encrusts the shell of his tortoise), rich perfumes and a kaleidoscope of sensual experiences. \u003ci\u003eAgainst Nature\u003c\/i\u003e, in the words of the author, exploded 'like a meteorite' and has enjoyed a cult following to this day.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFor more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43201453654194,"sku":"9780140447637","price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780140447637_90439e11-58a3-41d0-a641-b26824208a08.jpg?v=1786011877"},{"product_id":"9780199555116","title":"Against Nature","description":"`It will be the biggest fiasco of the year - but I don't care a damn! It will be something nobody has ever done before, and I shall have said what I had to say.' \n\nAs Joris -Karl Huysmans announced in 1884, Against Nature was fated to be a novel like no other. Resisting the models of classic nineteenth-century fiction, it focuses on the attempts of its anti-hero, the hypersensitive neurotic and aesthete, Des Esseintes, to escape Paris and the vulgarity of modern life. Holed up in his private museum of high taste, he offers Huysmans's readers a treasure trove of cultural delights which anticipates many of the strains of modernism in its appreciation of Baudelaire, Moreau, Redon, Mallarmé and Poe. This new translation is supplemented by indispensable notes which enhance the understanding of a highly allusive work. \n\nABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43201528987826,"sku":"9780199555116","price":9.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780199555116_4bf85a46-9f91-488b-93f6-a608f61e0464.jpg?v=1786012138"},{"product_id":"9780140447675","title":"The Damned","description":"\u003cb\u003eJoris-Karl Huysmans' shocking novel of an innocent's descent into a world of depraved, blasphemous rituals\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDurtal, a shy, censorious man, is writing a biography of Gilles de Rais, the monstrous fifteenth-century child-murderer thought to be the original for 'Bluebeard'. Bored and disgusted by the vulgarity of everyday life, Durtal seeks spiritual solace by immersing himself in another age. But when he starts asking questions about Gilles's involvement in satanic rituals and is introduced to the exquisitely evil madame Chantelouve, he is soon drawn into a twilight world of black magic and erotic devilry in fin-de- siècle Paris. Published in 1891, \u003ci\u003eThe Damned\u003c\/i\u003e cemented Huysmans's reputation as a writer at the forefront of the avant-garde and as one of the most challenging and innovative figures in European literature.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFor more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56224135741813,"sku":"9780140447675","price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780140447675_da3327d7-ab49-4d3f-bbc9-64bc9927c5f4.jpg?v=1786011879"},{"product_id":"9781787475502","title":"Against Nature (riverrun editions)","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe cult novel of \u003ci\u003efin de siècle \u003c\/i\u003edecadence that inspired Oscar Wilde\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e'It will be biggest fiasco of the year -  but I don't give a damn! It will be something nobody has ever done before.' \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe title page of the first complete English translation of \u003ci\u003eAgainst Nature\u003c\/i\u003e (published in the French as\u003ci\u003e À Rebours) \u003c\/i\u003e included the caption 'the book that Dorian Gray loved and inspired Oscar Wilde.' It was, declared Wilde, one of the best novels he had ever read. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt is the story of Jean des Esseintes, the last of a proud and noble family, who retreats from the world in disgust at bourgeois society and leads a life based on cultivation of the senses through art. Des Esseintes distills perfumes from the rarest oils and essences, he creates a garden of poisonous flowers, sets gemstones in a tortoise's gold-painted shell and plans to corrupt a street urchin until he is degraded enough to commit murder. Des Esseintes' aesthetic pilgrimage is described in minutely documented realistic detail and was widely regarded as the guidebook of decadence. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eThis influential novel is now available in a new translation by Theo Cuffe and includes a preface by Luc Sante\u003c\/b\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56305185554805,"sku":"9781787475502","price":10.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781787475502_b179f55c-e4f8-4648-8522-3b78aa994618.jpg?v=1786026046"},{"product_id":"9781962728034","title":"Domesticity","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eSteeped in sardonic pessimism, this ode to sterility was one of the author’s own favorite novels of his career\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eJoris-Karl Huysmans’ semi-autobiographical third novel, first published in French in 1881, signaled the beginning of his break from the naturalism of Émile Zola and his turn toward a \"new naturalism\" that laid out the negative consequences of determinism. \u003ci\u003eDomesticity\u003c\/i\u003e tells the tale of the novelist André Jayant and the artist Cyprien Tibaille, two men struggling between the urges of the body and the urges of the soul, and with the failure of matrimony or artistic endeavor to fulfill the needs of either. More than a psychological character study, though, \u003ci\u003eDomesticity\u003c\/i\u003e stands as one of the most memorable portraits of late 19th-century Paris and its sad, futile affairs of the heart.\u003cbr\u003eEarning a wage through a career in the French civil service, \u003cb\u003eJoris-Karl Huysmans\u003c\/b\u003e (1848–1907) quietly explored the extremes of human nature and artifice through a series of books that influenced a number of literary movements: from the grimy naturalism of \u003ci\u003eMarthe\u003c\/i\u003e to the cornerstone of the decadent movement, \u003ci\u003eAgainst Nature\u003c\/i\u003e and the Satanist classic \u003ci\u003eDown There\u003c\/i\u003e, to the dream-ridden Surrealist favorite \u003ci\u003eBecalmed\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56309661663605,"sku":"9781962728034","price":17.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781962728034_2d82ab04-02ad-49c0-8490-e60aa4a5a7d5.jpg?v=1786030581"},{"product_id":"with-the-flow","title":"With the Flow","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eOnly edition in print\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe   lowly, downtrodden Paris civil servant Jean Folantin seeks respite from the   boredom and isolation of his life in the small joys of food and the   occasional embraces of a prostitute. But whatever he does, wherever he turns   in his quest for some pleasure, his dissatisfaction only increases, until he   is forced to realize that he has to abandon all hope and just “go with the   flow”. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis 1882 novella, a key work in Huysmans’ literary development –   prefiguring in its protagonist the figure of Jean des Esseintes, the hero of   À rebours, written two years later – is accompanied here by another masterly   study of human despair, ‘M. Bougran’s Retirement’.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57490121097589,"sku":"9781847498342","price":7.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781847498342.jpg?v=1786442010"},{"product_id":"against-the-grain-1","title":"Against The Grain","description":"Joris-Karl Huysmans' book Against the Grain was first published in French as rebours in 1884.The piece embodies the decadence of late 19th-century French upper culture in both style and content. Des Esseintes, the main character, displays the crippling symptoms of neurasthenia, a broad psychosomatic condition that was popular at the time.Because of his health, he must temporarily leave Paris and move to his country estate in Fontenay, where he plots his route \"against the grain\" of everyday life. Des Esseintes creates a routine of exquisite sensualism while sequestered in luxury.He creates a \"mouth organ\" that he uses to drink \"harmonic\" liquor mixtures. He grows exotic plants and arranges to have a live tortoise's shell set with gems. Perfumes, monastery music, visionary art, and Stéphane Mallarmé's poetry are among his too polished interests. However, unchecked excess only makes his illness worse, leading his doctor to instruct him to return to Paris. Des Esseintes' request for mercy from a God he only loosely believes in brings the narrative to a close. Although the author wrote the book with a specific audience in mind, it has since become a reference on fin-de-siècle aestheticism.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57510290882933,"sku":"9789357270038","price":13.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9789357270038.jpg?v=1787130666"}],"url":"https:\/\/backstory.london\/collections\/author-joris-karl-huysmans.oembed","provider":"Backstory","version":"1.0","type":"link"}