Joris-Karl Huysmans
Encyclopedia
Charles-Marie-Georges Huysmans (February 5, 1848 – May 12, 1907) was a French
novelist who published his works as Joris-Karl Huysmans (ʒoʁis kaʁl). He is most famous for the novel À rebours
(Against the Grain or Against Nature). His work is remarkable for its idiosyncratic use of the French language
, extensive vocabulary, detailed and sensuous descriptions, and biting, satirical wit. It also displays an encyclopaedic erudition, ranging from the catalogue of decadent Latin
authors in À rebours to the discussion of the iconography of Christian architecture in La cathédrale. Huysmans expresses a disgust with modern life and a deep pessimism
, which led him first to the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer
, then back to the Catholicism in which he had been raised.
father, Godfried Huysmans, who was a lithographer by trade. His mother, Malvina Badin, had been a schoolmistress. He published his works as "Joris-Karl Huysmans", using an approximation of the Dutch equivalent of his forenames, to emphasize his roots. Huysmans' father died when he was eight years old and his mother quickly remarried, leading Huysmans to feel resentful against his stepfather, Jules Og, a Protestant who was part-owner of a Parisian book-bindery.
Huysmans was unhappy at school but gained a baccalauréat
. For thirty-two years, he worked as a civil servant for the French Ministry of the Interior, a job he found insufferably tedious. The young Huysmans was called up to fight in the Franco-Prussian War
, but was invalided out with dysentery, an experience he described in his early story Sac au dos (Backpack) (later included in Les Soirées de Médan
).
(1876). The story of a young prostitute, it was much closer to Naturalism
and brought him to the attention of Emile Zola
. His next works were similar: sombre, realistic and filled with detailed evocations of Paris, a city Huysmans knew intimately. Les Soeurs Vatard
, dedicated to Zola, deals with the lives of women in a bookbindery. En ménage
is an account of a writer's failed marriage (Huysmans himself never married, but had a long-term lover called Anna Meunier). The climax of his early work is the novella À vau-l'eau
(Downstream or With the Flow), the story of a downtrodden clerk, Monsieur Folantin, and his futile quest for a decent meal.
This was followed by Huysmans' most famous novel À rebours
(Against the Grain or Against Nature or Wrong Way) (1884), which featured a single character
, the aesthete
des Esseintes, and decisively broke from Naturalism, becoming the ultimate example of "decadent
" literature. The description of des Esseintes' "alluring liaison
" with a cherry-lipped youth influenced other writers of the decadent movement, including Oscar Wilde
, and is considered an important step in the formation of "gay literature". À rebours won further notoriety as an exhibit in the trials of Oscar Wilde in 1895, during which the prosecutor referred to the novel as a "sodomitical
" book. The book also appalled Zola, who felt it had dealt a "terrible blow" to Naturalism. Huysmans began to drift away from the Naturalists and found new friends among the Symbolist and Catholic writers whose work he had praised in À rebours, including Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly, Villiers de L'Isle Adam and Léon Bloy
. Stéphane Mallarmé
was so pleased with the publicity his verse had received from the novel that he dedicated one of his most famous (and most obscure) poems, "Prose pour des Esseintes", to its hero. Barbey d'Aurevilly told Huysmans that after writing À rebours he would have to choose between "the muzzle of a pistol and the foot of the Cross", and Huysmans, who had received a secular education and abandoned his religion in childhood, did indeed return to the Catholic Church eight years later.
Huysmans' next novel, En rade
, a highly unromantic account of a summer spent in the country, did not sell as well as its predecessor. In 1891, Là-Bas
attracted considerable attention for its depiction of Satanism
in the late 1880s. The book introduced the character Durtal, a thinly disguised self-portrait
. The later Durtal novels, En route
(1895), La cathédrale (1898) and L'oblat
(1903), record Durtal/Huysmans' conversion to Roman Catholicism
. En route depicts Durtal's spiritual struggle during his stay at a Trappist monastery. In La cathédrale the protagonist is at Chartres
, making an intense study of the cathedral and its symbolism. In L'Oblat, Durtal becomes a Benedictine
oblate
and finally learns to accept the world's suffering
. After his retirement from the Ministry in 1898, Huysmans planned to leave Paris and move to Ligugé, where he hoped to set up a community of Catholic artists, including Charles-Marie Dulac (1862-1898), a young painter he had praised in La cathédrale. However, the project was never realized as Dulac died a few months before Huysmans completed his arrangements for the move to Ligugé.
Huysmans was also known for his art criticism
in L'Art moderne (1883) and Certains (1889) and as a founding member of the Académie Goncourt
. He was also an early advocate of Impressionism
and an admirer of such artists as Gustave Moreau
and Odilon Redon
.
Huysmans was made a Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur
in 1892, but only for his work with the civil service. In 1905, his admirers persuaded the French government to promote him to Officier de la Légion d'honneur for his literary achievements. In the same year, Huysmans was diagnosed with cancer of the mouth. Joris-Karl Huysmans died in 1907 and was interred in the Cimetière de Montparnasse, Paris.
, "The Decadent Movement in Literature")
...Continually dragging Mother Image by the hair or the feet down the worm-eaten staircase of terrified Syntax. (Léon Bloy
, quoted in Robert Baldick, The Life of J.-K. Huysmans)
It is difficult to find a writer whose vocabulary is so extensive, so constantly surprising, so sharp and yet so exquisitely gamey in flavour, so constantly lucky in its chance finds and in its very inventiveness. (Julien Gracq
)
Current editions :
French people
The French are a nation that share a common French culture and speak the French language as a mother tongue. Historically, the French population are descended from peoples of Celtic, Latin and Germanic origin, and are today a mixture of several ethnic groups...
novelist who published his works as Joris-Karl Huysmans (ʒoʁis kaʁl). He is most famous for the novel À rebours
À rebours
À rebours is a novel by the French writer Joris-Karl Huysmans...
(Against the Grain or Against Nature). His work is remarkable for its idiosyncratic use of the French language
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
, extensive vocabulary, detailed and sensuous descriptions, and biting, satirical wit. It also displays an encyclopaedic erudition, ranging from the catalogue of decadent Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
authors in À rebours to the discussion of the iconography of Christian architecture in La cathédrale. Huysmans expresses a disgust with modern life and a deep pessimism
Pessimism
Pessimism, from the Latin word pessimus , is a state of mind in which one perceives life negatively. Value judgments may vary dramatically between individuals, even when judgments of fact are undisputed. The most common example of this phenomenon is the "Is the glass half empty or half full?"...
, which led him first to the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer was a German philosopher known for his pessimism and philosophical clarity. At age 25, he published his doctoral dissertation, On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, which examined the four separate manifestations of reason in the phenomenal...
, then back to the Catholicism in which he had been raised.
Parents and early life
He was born in Paris to a DutchNetherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
father, Godfried Huysmans, who was a lithographer by trade. His mother, Malvina Badin, had been a schoolmistress. He published his works as "Joris-Karl Huysmans", using an approximation of the Dutch equivalent of his forenames, to emphasize his roots. Huysmans' father died when he was eight years old and his mother quickly remarried, leading Huysmans to feel resentful against his stepfather, Jules Og, a Protestant who was part-owner of a Parisian book-bindery.
Huysmans was unhappy at school but gained a baccalauréat
Baccalauréat
The baccalauréat , often known in France colloquially as le bac, is an academic qualification which French and international students take at the end of the lycée . It was introduced by Napoleon I in 1808. It is the main diploma required to pursue university studies...
. For thirty-two years, he worked as a civil servant for the French Ministry of the Interior, a job he found insufferably tedious. The young Huysmans was called up to fight in the Franco-Prussian War
Franco-Prussian War
The Franco-Prussian War or Franco-German War, often referred to in France as the 1870 War was a conflict between the Second French Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia. Prussia was aided by the North German Confederation, of which it was a member, and the South German states of Baden, Württemberg and...
, but was invalided out with dysentery, an experience he described in his early story Sac au dos (Backpack) (later included in Les Soirées de Médan
Les Soirées de Médan
Les Soirées de Médan is a collection of six short stories by six different writers associated with Naturalism, first published in 1880. All the stories concern the Franco-Prussian War...
).
Writing career
His first major publication was a collection of prose poems, heavily influenced by Baudelaire, called Le drageoir aux épices (1874). They attracted little attention but already revealed flashes of the author's distinctive style. Huysmans followed it with Marthe, Histoire d'une filleMarthe
Marthe, histoire d'une fille was the first novel by the French writer Joris-Karl Huysmans, published in 1876....
(1876). The story of a young prostitute, it was much closer to Naturalism
Naturalism (literature)
Naturalism was a literary movement taking place from the 1880s to 1940s that used detailed realism to suggest that social conditions, heredity, and environment had inescapable force in shaping human character...
and brought him to the attention of Emile Zola
Émile Zola
Émile François Zola was a French writer, the most important exemplar of the literary school of naturalism and an important contributor to the development of theatrical naturalism...
. His next works were similar: sombre, realistic and filled with detailed evocations of Paris, a city Huysmans knew intimately. Les Soeurs Vatard
Les Soeurs Vatard
Les Sœurs Vatard is a novel by the French writer Joris-Karl Huysmans, first published in 1879. It was the author's second novel. His first, Marthe , had earned the praise of Émile Zola and Huysmans had come to be associated with the older author and his Naturalist school of fiction...
, dedicated to Zola, deals with the lives of women in a bookbindery. En ménage
En ménage
En ménage is a novel by the French writer Joris-Karl Huysmans, first published in February, 1881 by Charpentier.It tells the story of André Jayant, a novelist who marries a petty-minded woman called Berthe...
is an account of a writer's failed marriage (Huysmans himself never married, but had a long-term lover called Anna Meunier). The climax of his early work is the novella À vau-l'eau
À vau-l'eau
À vau-l'eau is a short novel by the French writer Joris-Karl Huysmans, first published by Henry Kistmaeckers in Brussels on January 26, 1882....
(Downstream or With the Flow), the story of a downtrodden clerk, Monsieur Folantin, and his futile quest for a decent meal.
This was followed by Huysmans' most famous novel À rebours
À rebours
À rebours is a novel by the French writer Joris-Karl Huysmans...
(Against the Grain or Against Nature or Wrong Way) (1884), which featured a single character
Fictional character
A character is the representation of a person in a narrative work of art . Derived from the ancient Greek word kharaktêr , the earliest use in English, in this sense, dates from the Restoration, although it became widely used after its appearance in Tom Jones in 1749. From this, the sense of...
, the aesthete
Aesthetics
Aesthetics is a branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of beauty, art, and taste, and with the creation and appreciation of beauty. It is more scientifically defined as the study of sensory or sensori-emotional values, sometimes called judgments of sentiment and taste...
des Esseintes, and decisively broke from Naturalism, becoming the ultimate example of "decadent
Decadent movement
The Decadent movement was a late 19th century artistic and literary movement of Western Europe. It flourished in France, but also had devotees in England and throughout Europe, as well as in the United States.-Overview:...
" literature. The description of des Esseintes' "alluring liaison
Homosexuality
Homosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, or romantic attractions" primarily or exclusively to people of the same...
" with a cherry-lipped youth influenced other writers of the decadent movement, including Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish writer and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s...
, and is considered an important step in the formation of "gay literature". À rebours won further notoriety as an exhibit in the trials of Oscar Wilde in 1895, during which the prosecutor referred to the novel as a "sodomitical
Sodomy
Sodomy is an anal or other copulation-like act, especially between male persons or between a man and animal, and one who practices sodomy is a "sodomite"...
" book. The book also appalled Zola, who felt it had dealt a "terrible blow" to Naturalism. Huysmans began to drift away from the Naturalists and found new friends among the Symbolist and Catholic writers whose work he had praised in À rebours, including Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly, Villiers de L'Isle Adam and Léon Bloy
Léon Bloy
Léon Bloy , was a French novelist, essayist, pamphleteer and poet.-Biography:Bloy was born in Notre-Dame-de-Sanilhac, in the arondissement of Périgueux, Dordogne. He was the second of six sons of Voltairean freethinker and stern disciplinarian Jean Baptiste Bloy and his wife Anne-Marie Carreau,...
. Stéphane Mallarmé
Stéphane Mallarmé
Stéphane Mallarmé , whose real name was Étienne Mallarmé, was a French poet and critic. He was a major French symbolist poet, and his work anticipated and inspired several revolutionary artistic schools of the early 20th century, such as Dadaism, Surrealism, and Futurism.-Biography:Stéphane...
was so pleased with the publicity his verse had received from the novel that he dedicated one of his most famous (and most obscure) poems, "Prose pour des Esseintes", to its hero. Barbey d'Aurevilly told Huysmans that after writing À rebours he would have to choose between "the muzzle of a pistol and the foot of the Cross", and Huysmans, who had received a secular education and abandoned his religion in childhood, did indeed return to the Catholic Church eight years later.
Huysmans' next novel, En rade
En rade
En rade is a novel by the French writer Joris-Karl Huysmans. It first appeared as a serial in the magazine La revue indépendante between November 1886 and April 1887. It was published in book form on 26 April, 1887 by Tresse et Stock...
, a highly unromantic account of a summer spent in the country, did not sell as well as its predecessor. In 1891, Là-Bas
Là-Bas
Là-Bas is a novel by the French writer Joris-Karl Huysmans, first published in 1891. It is Huysmans' most famous work after À rebours. Là-Bas deals with the subject of Satanism in contemporary France, and the novel stirred a certain amount of controversy on its first appearance...
attracted considerable attention for its depiction of Satanism
Satanism
Satanism is a group of religions that is composed of a diverse number of ideological and philosophical beliefs and social phenomena. Their shared feature include symbolic association with, admiration for the character of, and even veneration of Satan or similar rebellious, promethean, and...
in the late 1880s. The book introduced the character Durtal, a thinly disguised self-portrait
Self-portrait
A self-portrait is a representation of an artist, drawn, painted, photographed, or sculpted by the artist. Although self-portraits have been made by artists since the earliest times, it is not until the Early Renaissance in the mid 15th century that artists can be frequently identified depicting...
. The later Durtal novels, En route
En route (novel)
En route is a novel by the French writer Joris-Karl Huysmans, first published in 1895. It is the second of Huysmans' books to feature the character Durtal, a thinly disguised portrait of the author himself. Durtal had already appeared in Là-Bas, investigating Satanism...
(1895), La cathédrale (1898) and L'oblat
L'Oblat
L'Oblat is the last novel by the French writer Joris-Karl Huysmans, first published in 1903. It is the final book in Huysmans' cycle of four novels featuring the character Durtal, a thinly disguised portrait of the author himself...
(1903), record Durtal/Huysmans' conversion to Roman Catholicism
Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...
. En route depicts Durtal's spiritual struggle during his stay at a Trappist monastery. In La cathédrale the protagonist is at Chartres
Chartres
Chartres is a commune and capital of the Eure-et-Loir department in northern France. It is located southwest of Paris.-Geography:Chartres is built on the left bank of the Eure River, on a hill crowned by its famous cathedral, the spires of which are a landmark in the surrounding country...
, making an intense study of the cathedral and its symbolism. In L'Oblat, Durtal becomes a Benedictine
Benedictine
Benedictine refers to the spirituality and consecrated life in accordance with the Rule of St Benedict, written by Benedict of Nursia in the sixth century for the cenobitic communities he founded in central Italy. The most notable of these is Monte Cassino, the first monastery founded by Benedict...
oblate
Oblate (religion)
An oblate in Christian monasticism is a person who is specifically dedicated to God or to God's service. Currently, oblate has two meanings:...
and finally learns to accept the world's suffering
Suffering
Suffering, or pain in a broad sense, is an individual's basic affective experience of unpleasantness and aversion associated with harm or threat of harm. Suffering may be qualified as physical or mental. It may come in all degrees of intensity, from mild to intolerable. Factors of duration and...
. After his retirement from the Ministry in 1898, Huysmans planned to leave Paris and move to Ligugé, where he hoped to set up a community of Catholic artists, including Charles-Marie Dulac (1862-1898), a young painter he had praised in La cathédrale. However, the project was never realized as Dulac died a few months before Huysmans completed his arrangements for the move to Ligugé.
Huysmans was also known for his art criticism
Art criticism
Art criticism is the discussion or evaluation of visual art.Art critics usually criticize art in the context of aesthetics or the theory of beauty...
in L'Art moderne (1883) and Certains (1889) and as a founding member of the Académie Goncourt
Académie Goncourt
The Société littéraire des Goncourt , usually called the académie Goncourt , is a French literary organization based in Paris. It was founded by the French writer and publisher Edmond de Goncourt...
. He was also an early advocate of Impressionism
Impressionism
Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement that originated with a group of Paris-based artists whose independent exhibitions brought them to prominence during the 1870s and 1880s...
and an admirer of such artists as Gustave Moreau
Gustave Moreau
Gustave Moreau was a French Symbolist painter whose main emphasis was the illustration of biblical and mythological figures. As a painter of literary ideas, Moreau appealed to the imaginations of some Symbolist writers and artists.- Biography :Moreau was born in Paris. His father, Louis Jean Marie...
and Odilon Redon
Odilon Redon
Bertrand-Jean Redon, better known as Odilon Redon was a French symbolist painter, printmaker, draughtsman and pastellist.-Life:...
.
Huysmans was made a Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur
Légion d'honneur
The Legion of Honour, or in full the National Order of the Legion of Honour is a French order established by Napoleon Bonaparte, First Consul of the Consulat which succeeded to the First Republic, on 19 May 1802...
in 1892, but only for his work with the civil service. In 1905, his admirers persuaded the French government to promote him to Officier de la Légion d'honneur for his literary achievements. In the same year, Huysmans was diagnosed with cancer of the mouth. Joris-Karl Huysmans died in 1907 and was interred in the Cimetière de Montparnasse, Paris.
Style and influence
Barbaric in its profusion, violent in its emphasis, wearying in its splendor, it is - especially in regard to things seen - extraordinarily expressive, with all the shades of a painter's palette. Elaborately and deliberately perverse, it is in its very perversity that Huysmans' work - so fascinating, so repellent, so instinctively artificial - comes to represent, as the work of no other writer can be said to do, the main tendencies, the chief results, of the Decadent movement in literature. (Arthur SymonsArthur Symons
Arthur William Symons , was a British poet, critic and magazine editor.-Life:Born in Milford Haven, Wales, of Cornish parents, Symons was educated privately, spending much of his time in France and Italy...
, "The Decadent Movement in Literature")
...Continually dragging Mother Image by the hair or the feet down the worm-eaten staircase of terrified Syntax. (Léon Bloy
Léon Bloy
Léon Bloy , was a French novelist, essayist, pamphleteer and poet.-Biography:Bloy was born in Notre-Dame-de-Sanilhac, in the arondissement of Périgueux, Dordogne. He was the second of six sons of Voltairean freethinker and stern disciplinarian Jean Baptiste Bloy and his wife Anne-Marie Carreau,...
, quoted in Robert Baldick, The Life of J.-K. Huysmans)
It is difficult to find a writer whose vocabulary is so extensive, so constantly surprising, so sharp and yet so exquisitely gamey in flavour, so constantly lucky in its chance finds and in its very inventiveness. (Julien Gracq
Julien Gracq
Julien Gracq , born Louis Poirier in Saint-Florent-le-Vieil, in the French département of Maine-et-Loire, was a French writer. He wrote novels, critiques, a play, and poetry. His literary works were noted for their Surrealism.Gracq first studied in Paris at the Lycée Henri IV, where he earned his...
)
Works by Huysmans
- Le drageoir aux épices (1874)
- MartheMartheMarthe, histoire d'une fille was the first novel by the French writer Joris-Karl Huysmans, published in 1876....
(1876) - Les Soeurs VatardLes Soeurs VatardLes Sœurs Vatard is a novel by the French writer Joris-Karl Huysmans, first published in 1879. It was the author's second novel. His first, Marthe , had earned the praise of Émile Zola and Huysmans had come to be associated with the older author and his Naturalist school of fiction...
(1879) - Sac au dos (1880)
- Croquis Parisiens (1880, 2nd ed. 1886)
- En ménageEn ménageEn ménage is a novel by the French writer Joris-Karl Huysmans, first published in February, 1881 by Charpentier.It tells the story of André Jayant, a novelist who marries a petty-minded woman called Berthe...
(1881) - Pierrot sceptique (1881, written in collaboration with Léon Hennique)
- À vau-l'eauÀ vau-l'eauÀ vau-l'eau is a short novel by the French writer Joris-Karl Huysmans, first published by Henry Kistmaeckers in Brussels on January 26, 1882....
(1882) - L'art moderne (1883)
- À reboursÀ reboursÀ rebours is a novel by the French writer Joris-Karl Huysmans...
(1884) - En radeEn radeEn rade is a novel by the French writer Joris-Karl Huysmans. It first appeared as a serial in the magazine La revue indépendante between November 1886 and April 1887. It was published in book form on 26 April, 1887 by Tresse et Stock...
(1887) - Un Dilemme (1887)
- Certains (1889)
- La bièvre (1890)
- Là-BasLà-BasLà-Bas is a novel by the French writer Joris-Karl Huysmans, first published in 1891. It is Huysmans' most famous work after À rebours. Là-Bas deals with the subject of Satanism in contemporary France, and the novel stirred a certain amount of controversy on its first appearance...
(1891) - En routeEn route (novel)En route is a novel by the French writer Joris-Karl Huysmans, first published in 1895. It is the second of Huysmans' books to feature the character Durtal, a thinly disguised portrait of the author himself. Durtal had already appeared in Là-Bas, investigating Satanism...
(1895) - La cathédraleThe Cathedral (novel)The Cathedral is a novel by the French writer Joris-Karl Huysmans, first published in 1898.It is the third of Huysmans' books to feature the character Durtal, a thinly disguised portrait of the author himself. Durtal had already appeared in Là-Bas and En route, which had recounted his conversion...
(1898) - La Bièvre et Saint-Séverin (1898)
- La magie en Poitou. Gilles de Rais. (1899) (see Gilles de RaisGilles de RaisGilles de Montmorency-Laval , Baron de Rais, was a Breton knight, a leader in the French army and a companion-in-arms of Joan of Arc. He is best known as a prolific serial killer of children...
) - La Bièvre; Les Gobelins; Saint-Séverin (1901)
- Sainte Lydwine de Schiedam (1901, France) (on saint Lydwine de Schiedam) (Nihil ObstatNihil obstatNihil obstat is a declaration of no objection to an initiative or an appointment....
and ImprimaturImprimaturAn imprimatur is, in the proper sense, a declaration authorizing publication of a book. The term is also applied loosely to any mark of approval or endorsement.-Catholic Church:...
)- Saint Lydwine of Schiedam, translated from the French by Agnes Hastings (London, 1923, Kegan Paul)
- De Tout (1902)
- Esquisse biographique sur Don Bosco (1902)
- L'OblatL'OblatL'Oblat is the last novel by the French writer Joris-Karl Huysmans, first published in 1903. It is the final book in Huysmans' cycle of four novels featuring the character Durtal, a thinly disguised portrait of the author himself...
(1903) - Trois Primitifs (1905)
- Le Quartier Notre-Dame (1905)
- Les foules de Lourdes (1906)
- Trois Églises et trois Primitifs (1908)
Current editions :
- Écrits sur l’art (1867-1905), edited and introduced by Patrice Locmant, Paris, Éditions Bartillat, 2006.
- À Paris, edited and introduced by Patrice Locmant, Paris, Éditions Bartillat, 2005.
- Les Églises de Paris, edited and introduced by Patrice Locmant, Paris, Éditions de Paris, 2005.
- Le Drageoir aux épices, edited and introduced by Patrice Locmant, Paris, Honoré Champion, 2003.
See also
- Joseph-Antoine BoullanJoseph-Antoine BoullanAbbé Joseph-Antoine Boullan was a French Roman Catholic priest and later a laicized priest, who is often accused of being a satanist although he continued to defend his status as a christian.He was a friend and inspiration of the writer Joris Karl Huysmans...
- Stanislas de GuaitaStanislas de GuaitaStanislas de Guaita was a French poet based in Paris, an expert on esotericism and European mysticism, and an active member of the Rosicrucian Order. He was very celebrated and successful in his time. He was an expert on magic and occultism. He had many disputes with other people who were involved...
- Henri Antoine Jules-Bois
- Joséphin PéladanJoséphin PéladanJoséphin Péladan was a French novelist and Martinist. His father was a journalist who had written on prophecies, and professed a philosophic-occult Catholicism.-Biography:...
- Our Lady of La SaletteOur Lady of La SaletteLa Salette is a small mountaintop village near Grenoble, France. It is most noted for an apparition of the Virgin Mary that was reported in 1846 by two shepherd children, Mélanie Calvat and Maximin Giraud, followed by numerous accounts of miraculous healings....
Further reading
- Robert BaldickRobert BaldickRobert Baldick was a British scholar of French literature, writer, joint editor of the Penguin Classics series with Betty Radice and a well-known translator. He was a Fellow of Pembroke College, Oxford....
, The Life of J.-K. Huysmans (Oxford, 1955; new edition revised by Brendan King, Dedalus Books, 2006) - George A. Cevasco, J.K. Huysmans in England and America: A Bibliographical Study (The Bibliographical Society of the University of Virginia, n.d., c. 1961)
- James LaverJames LaverJames Laver CBE FRSA was an author, art historian, and museum curator who acted as Keeper of Prints, Drawings and Paintings for the Victoria and Albert Museum between 1938 and 1959...
, The First Decadent: Being the Strange Life of J.K. Huysmans (Faber, London, 1954) - Patrice Locmant, J.-K. Huysmans, le forçat de la vie, Bartillat, 2007 (Goncourt Price for Biography).
External links
- Joris Karl Huysmans, A site that includes almost all of Huysmans' published work as well as contemporary material about him.
- Joris Karl Huysmans, biography.
- Works by or about Joris-Karl Huysmans at Internet ArchiveInternet ArchiveThe Internet Archive is a non-profit digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It offers permanent storage and access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, music, moving images, and nearly 3 million public domain books. The Internet Archive...
(scanned books original editions color illustrated)- Against The Grain by Joris-Karl Huysmans, Project GutenbergProject GutenbergProject Gutenberg is a volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works, to "encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks". Founded in 1971 by Michael S. Hart, it is the oldest digital library. Most of the items in its collection are the full texts of public domain books...
ebook (Also known as Á Rebours or Against Nature) - Là-bas (Down There) by J. K. Huysmans, Project Gutenberg ebook (Also known as The Damned)
- The Cathedral by J. K. Huysmans, Project Gutenberg ebook
- Against The Grain by Joris-Karl Huysmans, Project Gutenberg
- Catholic Encyclopedia entry on Huysmans
- The Word-Painter of Paris by Colin WilsonColin WilsonColin Henry Wilson is a prolific English writer who first came to prominence as a philosopher and novelist. Wilson has since written widely on true crime, mysticism and other topics. He prefers calling his philosophy new existentialism or phenomenological existentialism.- Early biography:Born and...
- Bernard BonnejeanBernard Bonnejean(born 10 June 1950 in Ernée (Mayenne), on June 10, 1950, is a French author, specialist of catholic French poetry of 19th and 20th centuries.-Youth:...
"Huysmans avant À Rebours : les fondements nécessaires d'une quête en devenir", in Le Mal dans l'imaginaire français (1850–1950), éd. David et L'Harmattan, 1998 (ISBN 2-7384-6198-0)