New Addition: Pierre Louÿs' Collected Works in English

Pierre Louÿs, Collected Works. 1951. Shakespeare House: New York. Hardcover clothbound Sextodecimo, 628 pp.

Combining the Romantic Orientalist love of ‘exotic’ cultures, the Parnassian affinity for ancient Mediterranean cultures, and the Decadent interest in sexuality and excess, Pierre Louÿs developed a body of erotic novels which were thoroughly steeped in historical research, which exercised a major influence on (among others) Jarry, especially on Messalina, the latter’s historical novel of ancient Rome. Louÿs was bisexual, and created one of the first extensive bodies of work in France to consistently and positively portray lesbianism; he was an important part of the European homosexual intellectual community, and was the dedicatee of Oscar Wilde's Salomé. His work made a major impact on underground Libertine subculture, and were often translated and published in very small, private editions in order to evade stringent censorship laws in the US and UK in the first half of the 20th Century. The various copies of his novel Aphrodite that are held in the Revenant Archive reflect this history; the book was a best-seller in France, and available only in underground circles in translation, in many different editions of very small runs. This collection, published in 1951, represents a loosening of these regulations, and his transition from a notorious underground force in English literature to a respectable but seldom-read footnote to academic history.