Decadent Literature: 10 Essential Works from Huysmans to Vernon Lee

Key facts

• The article lists 10 essential works of decadent literature, spanning from 1857 to 1904-07.
• Joris-Karl Huysmans's 'À rebours' (1884) is considered the 'breviary' of decadence.
• Oscar Wilde's 'The Picture of Dorian Gray' (1891) was influenced by 'À rebours'.
• Charles Baudelaire's 'Les Fleurs du Mal' (1857) was prosecuted for obscenity.
• Ernest Dowson's poem 'Non Sum Qualis Eram Bonae Sub Regno Cynarae' inspired the title of Margaret Mitchell's 'Gone with the Wind' (1936).
• Aubrey Beardsley's 'Under the Hill' was unfinished at his death in 1898 and published as 'The Story of Venus and Tannhäuser' in 1904-07.
• Rachilde's 'Monsieur Vénus' (1884) was originally published in Belgium and caused scandal.
• Octave Mirbeau's 'The Torture Garden' (1899) was published during the Dreyfus Affair.
• Gabriele d'Annunzio, author of 'Il trionfo della morte' (1894), later became involved in proto-fascist politics.
• George Egerton's 'Keynotes' (1893) was illustrated by Aubrey Beardsley and published by John Lane, founder of The Yellow Book.
• Vernon Lee (born Violet Paget) was skeptical of the aesthetic movement and lived in Florence, Italy.
• The article discusses the movement's themes: synesthesia, withdrawal from society, sexual transgression, and the relationship between art and morality.