Jean-Marie-Mathias-Philippe-Auguste, comte de Villiers de l'Isle-Adam was a French symbolist writer. His family called him Mathias while his friends called him Villiers; he would also use the name Aug
Auguste Villiers de l'Isle-Adam in 1886
À rebours
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À rebours is an 1884 novel by the French writer Joris-Karl Huysmans. The narrative centers on a single character: Jean des Esseintes, an eccentric, reclusive, ailing aesthete. The last scion of an ari
Frontispiece of the first edition where "in collaboration" with the publisher Charpentier one can discern, among others, Émile Zola, Guy de Maupassant, Henry Cérard, Paul Alexis.
J.-K. Huysmans (1848–1907)
Des Esseintes in his study, by Arthur Zaidenberg (Against the Grain, New York, Illustrated Editions, 1931)
Title page of the 1926 first complete English translation with the caption "the book that Dorian Gray loved and that inspired Oscar Wilde".