Book description
The sensationalism and morbid pessimism that characterized French
decadence in the late nineteenth century quickly attracted converts
throughout Europe, including Russia. The Dedalus Book of Russian
Decadence: Perversity, Despair and Collapse brings together
horrifying, dramatic and erotic short stories and poetry, most of
which have never before been translated into English, by the most
decadent Russian writers. It includes scandalous writings by the
well-known authors Valery Briusov, Leonid Andreyev, Fedor Sologub and
Zinaida Gippius and acquaints English-speaking readers with the
forgotten writer Aleksandr Kondratiev. These writers explore the
darkest depths of the unconscious, as their characters experience
sadism, masochism, rape, murder, suicide, and, in a story by Gippius,
even passionate love for the dead.
