Literary Rogues

by Andrew Shaffer

  40 To promise forever to love: Percy Bysshe Shelley, Queen Mab: A Philosophical Poem, with Notes (New York: Wright & Owen, 1831), p. 69.

  40 never loved her nor pretended to: Margot Strickland, The Byron Women (London: P. Owen, 1974), p. 133.

  41 I saw the hideous phantasm: Julian Marshall, The Life & Letters of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Vol. 1 (London: Richard Bentley & Son, 1889), p. 142.

  41 chimeras of boundless grandeur: Mary Shelley, Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (London: George Routledge and Sons, 1891), p. 63.

  42 democrat, great lover of mankind: Edmund Blunden, On Shelley (London: Oxford University Press, 1838), p. 43.

  43 the writer of some infidel poetry: The Courier, August 5, 1822, p. 3.

  44 The impression of the first few minutes: Marguerite Blessington, Conversations of Lord Byron, pp. 1–2.

  44 done with women: Blessington, The Works of Lady Blessington, Vol. 2, p. 252.

  45 have blown my brains out: Thomas Moore, Letters and Journals of Lord Byron with Notices of His Life, Vol. 2 (London: John Murray, 1830), p. 72.

  45 composition is a great pain: Ibid., p. 436.

  45 those who are intent only on the beaten road: Marguerite Blessington, The Works of Lady Blessington, Vol. 1 (Philadelphia: E. L. Carey and A. Hart, 1838), p. 265.

  45 speculations of those mere dreamers: Rowland E. Prothero, ed., The Works of Lord Byron: Letters & Journals, Vol. 3 (London: John Murray, 1899), p. 405.

  45 If I had to live over again: Rowland E. Prothero, ed., The Works of Lord Byron: Letters & Journals, Vol. 5(London: John Murray, 1904), p. 456.

  46 genius, like greatness: Blessington, Conversations of Lord Byron, p. 184.

  6: AMERICAN GOTHIC

  47 Men have called me mad: Edgar Allan Poe, “Eleonora,” The Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe (New York: Vintage Books, 1975), p. 649.

  47 The history of American writers: Alfred Kazin, “‘The Giant Killer’: Drink and the American Writer,” Commentary (March 1976): 49.

  48 a worm inside that would not die: Edgar Allan Poe, Histoires Extraordinaires par Edgar Poe, trans. and introduction, Charles Baudelaire (Paris: Michel Lévy Frères, 1856), p. xxvi.

  48 I have absolutely no pleasure: John H. Ingram, Edgar Allan Poe: His Life, Letters, and Opinions (London: Ward, Lock, Bowden, 1891), pp. 174–175.

  48 I do believe God gave me a spark of genius: Mary Elizabeth Phillips, Edgar Allan Poe, The Man (Philadelphia: John C. Winston, 1926), p. xi.

  49 I could not love except where: Ingram, Edgar Allan Poe: His Life, Letters, and Opinions, p. 83.

  49 His whole nature was reversed: Rufus Wilmot Griswold, The Works of the Late Edgar Allan Poe with a Memoir, Vol. 1 (New York: Bedfield, 1857), p. xvii.

  50 Edgar A. Perry: G. E. Woodberry, “Poe’s Legendary Years,” Atlantic Monthly 54 (1884): 819.

  50 I left West Point two days ago: Dwight Thomas and David Kelly Jackson, The Poe Log: A Documentary Life of Edgar Allan Poe, 1809–1849 (Boston: G. K. Hall, 1987), p. 115.

  50 I went to bed and wept through: Ingram, Edgar Allan Poe: His Life, Letters, and Opinions, p. 393.

  51 I am perishing: John Ward Ostrom, ed., The Letters of Edgar Allan Poe, Vol. 1 (New York: Gordian Press, 1966), p. 50.

  51 Mr. Poe was a fine gentleman when he was sober: Thomas and Jackson, The Poe Log, p. 168.

  52 I believe that I am making a sensation: William Fearing Gill, The Life of Edgar Allan Poe (New York: W. J. Widdleton, 1880), p. 120.

  52 unless he is famous: Ingram, Edgar Allan Poe: His Life, Letters, and Opinions, p. 313.

  53 women fell under his fascination: Elizabeth Oakes Smith, Selections From the Autobiography of Elizabeth Oakes (Prince) Smith (New York: Arno Press, 1980), p. 88.

  53 My feelings at this moment: Ingram, Edgar Allan Poe: His Life, Letters, and Opinions, p. 103.

  53 I never heard him speak: H. L. Mencken, ed., The American Mercury, Vol. 29 (New York: B. W. Huebsch), p. 452.

  53 I will be your guardian angel: Phillips, Edgar Allan Poe, the Man, Vol. 2, p. 111.

  53 The death of a beautiful woman: Franklin Verzelius Newton Painter, Introduction to American Literature (Boston: Sibley & Ducker, 1897), p. 381.

  53 Six years ago, a wife: Ingram, Edgar Allan Poe: His Life, Letters, and Opinions, p. 174.

  54 I am getting better, and may add: Ibid., p. 318.

  54 did violence to my own heart: James A. Harrison, ed., The Last Letters of Edgar Allan Poe to Sarah Helen Whitman (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1909), p. 22.

  54 Ah, how profound is my love for you: Ingram, Edgar Allan Poe: His Life, Letters, and Opinions, p. 375.

  55 It is no use to reason with me now: John Ward Ostrom, ed., The Letters of Edgar Allan Poe, Vol. 2 (New York: Gordian Press, 1966), p. 452.

  55 rather the worse for wear: John Howard Raymond, Life and Letters of John Howard Raymond (New York: Fords, Howard, & Hulbert, 1881), p. 328.

  55 almost a suicide: Charles Baudelaire, Baudelaire on Poe: Critical Papers, trans. Lois and Francis E. Jr. Hyslop (State College, Pennsylvania: Bald Eagle Press, 1952), p. 101.

  55 alcohol, cholera, drugs: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_Allan_Poe (retrieved June 27, 2012).

  56 Hic tandemi felicis: Eugene L. Didler, “The Grave of Poe,” Appleton’s Journal, January 27, 1872.

  56 Edgar Allan Poe is dead: Rufus Griswold (writing as “Ludwig”), “Death of Edgar Allan Poe,” New York Daily Tribune, October 9, 1849, p. 2.

  7: THE REALISTS

  57 Vocations which we wanted to pursue: Eugene Ehrlich and Marshall De Bruhl, The International Thesaurus of Quotations (New York: HarperCollins, 1996), p. 730.

  57 Don’t force me to do anything: Richard Davenport-Hines, The Pursuit of Oblivion: A Global History of Narcotics (New York: W. W. Norton, 2004). p. 90.

  57 Above all else, we were artists: Ibid., p. 91.

  58 Women one and all have condemned me: Honoré de Balzac, The Magic Skin and Other Stories, trans. Ellen Marriage (Boston: Dana Estes, 1899), p. 81.

  58 immense and sole desires: Katharine Prescott Wormeley, A Memoir of Honoré de Balzac (Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1892), p. 44.

  59 The pleasure of striking out: Balzac, The Magic Skin and Other Stories, p. 88.

  59 do anything, no matter what: Wormeley, A Memoir of Honoré de Balzac, p. 40.

  60 I am about to become a genius: Ibid., p. 83.

  60 Coffee is a great power in my life: Honoré de Balzac, “The Pleasures and Pains of Coffee,” trans. Robert Onopa, Michigan Quarterly Review 35, no. 2 (Spring 1996): 273.

  60 heard some celestial voices: Davenport-Hines, The Pursuit of Oblivion, p. 96.

  60 The streets of Paris possess human qualities: Samuel Rogers, Balzac & the Novel (New York: Octagon Books, 1969), p. 45.

  61 The majority of husbands: Robert I. Fitzhenry, The Harper Book of Quotations (New York: HarperCollins, 1993), p. 280.

  61 not precisely beautiful: Mary F. Sandars, Honoré de Balzac: His Life and Writings (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1905), p. 171.

  61 All great men are monsters: Honoré de Balzac, Lost Illusions: The Two Poets Eve and David, trans. Katharine Prescott Wormeley (Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1893), p. 365.

  61 beautiful unknown women: Graham Robb, Balzac: A Biography (New York: W. W. Norton, 1996), p. 281.

  61 rather tiresome: Ibid.

  62 Since you have read his novels: Ibid., p. 282.

  62 My heart, soul, and ambition: Sandars, Honoré de Balzac: His Life and Writings, p. 325.

  62 Three days ago I married: Ibid., p. 339.

  63 There are no noble subjects: Gustave Flaubert, The Selected Letters of Gustave Flaubert, trans. Francis Steegmuller (New York: Farrar, Straus and Young, 1954), p. 131.

  63 I pass entire weeks: Aimee L. McKenzie, trans., The George Sand–Gustave Flaubert Letters (New York: Boni and Liveright, 1922), p. 46.

  64 that poor sucker Flaubert: Marion Capron, Dorothy Parker, The Art of Fiction No. 13, The Paris
Review (Summer 1956).

  64 all without taking my cigar out of my mouth: Edmond de Goncourt and Jules de Goncourt, The Goncourt Journals, 1851–1870 (New York: Doubleday, 1958), p. 198.

  64 this mode of ejaculation: Davenport-Hines, The Pursuit of Oblivion, p. 93.

  64 Hatred of the bourgeois: McKenzie, trans., The George Sand–Gustave Flaubert Letters, p. 66.

  65 Does the reading of such a book: Gustave Flaubert, The Works of Gustave Flaubert (New York: Walter J. Black, 1904), p. 277.

  65 You can calculate the worth of a man: Elizabeth M. Knowles, The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (London: Oxford University Press, 1999), p. 316.

  65 What a brave man she was: Lady Ritchie, Blackstick Papers (London: Smith, Elder, 1908), p. 243.

  66 too imperious a machine: Natalie Datlof, Jeanne Fuchs, and David A. Powell, The World of George Sand (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1991), p. xix.

  66 There is only one happiness in life: André Maurois, Lélia: The Life of George Sand (New York: Penguin Books, 1977), p. 482.

  66 in the theater or in your bed: Renee Winegarten, The Double Life of George Sand, Woman and Writer (New York: Basic Books, 1978), p. 116.

  66 She has a grasp of mind: E. C. Gaskell, The Life of Charlotte Brontë, Vol. 2 (Leipzig, Germany: Bernhard Tauchnitz, 1857), p. 48.

  67 brother George: Wormeley, A Memoir of Honoré de Balzac, p. 254.

  67 Spare yourself a little: McKenzie, trans., The George Sand–Gustave Flaubert Letters, p. 48.

  67 Not to love is to cease to live: Ibid., p. 213.

  67 charming profession: Ibid., p. 46.

  67 I believe that the crowd: Ibid., p. 208.

  67 The world will know and understand: Curtis Cate, George Sand: A Biography (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1975), p. 276.

  8: THE FLESHLY SCHOOL

  69 in evil lies all pleasure: F. W. J. Hemmings, Baudelaire the Damned: A Biography (New York: Bloomsbury Reader, 2011), Kindle edition: location 4213.

  69 Women write and write: Charles Baudelaire, Fatal Destinies: The Edgar Poe Essays, trans. Joan Fiedler Mele (Woodhaven, NY: Cross Country Press, 1981), p. 37.

  69 dashes off her masterpieces: Warren U. Ober, ed., The Enigma of Poe (Boston: D. C. Heath, 1969), p. 130.

  70 At school I read: Hemmings, Baudelaire the Damned, Kindle location 682.

  70 The moment has come: A. E. Carter, Charles Baudelaire (Woodbridge, CT: Twayne Publishers, 1977), p. 31.

  71 weakness for loose ladies: Hemmings, Baudelaire the Damned, Kindle location 755.

  71 mistress of mistresses: Charles Baudelaire, The Poems and Prose Poems of Charles Baudelaire (New York: Brentano’s, 1919), p. 19.

  72 so as to have peace and quiet: Hemmings, Baudelaire the Damned, Kindle location 2411.

  72 I am truly glad: Charles Baudelaire, The Letters of Charles Baudelaire to His Mother (New York: Haskell House Publishers, 1928), p. 45.

  72 had some qualities: Ibid., pp. 44–45.

  73 Her legs were spread out: Charles Baudelaire, The Flowers of Evil, trans. Jonathan Culler (London: Oxford University Press, 2008), p. 59.

  73 the way to rejuvenate Romanticism: Margaret Gilman, The Idea of Poetry in France (Boston: Harvard University Press, 1958), p. 246.

  73 refinements of excessive civilization: Benjamin R. Barber, The Artist and Political Vision (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1982), p. 32.

  73 carcass literature: Charles Baudelaire, The Flowers of Evil, p. xix.

  73 Never, in the space of so few pages: Enid Starkie, Baudelaire (London: Faber and Faber, 1971), p. 313.

  74 in mourning for Les fleurs du mal: Hemmings, Baudelaire the Damned, Kindle edition: location 3177.

  74 It is impossible to scan any newspaper: Charles Baudelaire, The Essence of Laughter and Other Essays, Journals, and Letters, trans. Peter Quennell (New York: Meridian Books, 1956), p. 195.

  74 Always you join with the mob: Hemmings, Baudelaire the Damned, Kindle location 3801.

  75 I detest Paris: Ibid., location 3622.

  75 an inner weight of woe: Jay Parini, Theodore Roethke, An American Romantic (Boston: University of Massachusetts Press, 1979), p. 150.

  75 One must always be intoxicated: Charles Baudelaire, Arthur Rimbaud, and Paul Verlaine, Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Verlaine: Selected Verse and Prose Poems, ed. Joseph M. Bernstein (New York: Citadel Press, 1947), p. 131.

  76 Here in this world: Edward K. Kaplan, Baudelaire’s Prose Poems (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2009), p. 32.

  76 poisonous stimulants seem to me: Charles Baudelaire, On Wine and Hashish, trans. Andrew Brown (London: Hesperus, 2002), p. 66.

  76 Hashish, like all other solitary delights: Baudelaire, The Essence of Laughter and Other Essays, Journals, and Letters, p. 104.

  77 a dandy of the brothel: Clarence R. Decker, The Victorian Conscience (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1977), p. 68.

  77 to blow out his brains: Hemmings, Baudelaire the Damned, Kindle location 3716.

  78 now you can get dressed again: Ibid., location 4192.

  78 won himself a name in literature: Ibid., location 725.

  9: THE FRENCH DECADENTS

  81 preposterously French: Victor Plarr, Ernest Dowson 1888–1897 (New York: Laurence J. Gomme, 1919), p. 22.

  81 disregard everything our parents have taught us: Compton Mackenzie, Robert Louis Stevenson (London: Chapman and Hall, 1950), p. 11.

  81 my whole life a failure: Ernest Mehew, ed., Selected Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1997), p. 29.

  81 the heaviest affliction: Ibid., p. 29.

  82 bewilder the middle classes: Holbrook Jackson, The Eighteen Nineties (London: Kennerly, 1914), p. 161.

  82 an infant Shakespeare: Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 38 (1911): p. 371.

  82 You have caused my misfortune: Arthur Rimbaud, A Season in Hell, trans. Oliver Bernard (New York: Penguin Books, 1996), p. 19.

  83 the sufferings are enormous: Richard Ellman, The Modern Tradition: Backgrounds in Modern Literature (London: Oxford University Press, 1965), p. 203.

  83 Come, dear great soul: Stefan Zweig, Paul Verlaine, trans. O. F. Theis (Boston: Luce, 1913), p. 39.

  83 It was upon absinthe that I threw myself: Barnaby Conrad, Absinthe: History in a Bottle (San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 1996), p. 25.

  84 The first stage of absinthe: Ibid., p. viii.

  84 in very respectable places: Phil Baker, The Book of Absinthe: A Cultural History (New York: Grove Press, 2003), p. 72.

  84 diabolical powers of seduction: Ibid., p. 67.

  85 People are saying I’m a pederast: Graham Robb, Rimbaud (New York: W. W. Norton, 2001), p. 210.

  85 Have you any idea how ridiculous you look: Ibid., p. 213.

  85 I retaliated, because I can assure you: Ibid.

  86 London, Friday afternoon: Ibid., p. 214.

  86 blow his brains out: Joanna Richardson, Verlaine (New York: Viking Press, 1971), p. 116.

  86 you have disgraced yourself with Arthur: Robb, Rimbaud, p. 217.

  87 It’s for you, for me: Jean Marie Carré, A Season in Hell: The Life of Arthur Rimbaud (New York: Macaulay, 1931), p. 138.

  87 He was still trying to prevent me: Robb, Rimbaud, p. 220.

  88 penis is short: Ibid., p. 224.

  88 my heart, which beats only for you: Paul Verlaine, “Green,” Topic, no. 35 (Washington, PA: Washington and Jefferson College, 1981), p. 31.

  90 prince of poets: The Contemporary Review, Vol. 74 (London: Ibister, 1898), p. 892.

  10: THE ENGLISH DECADENTS

  91 alcohol taken in sufficient quantity: Richard Ellman, Oscar Wilde (New York: Knopf, 1988), p. 562.

  91 I never could quite accustom myself: Ellman, Oscar Wilde, p. 40.

  91 Dowson is very talented: Jad Adams, Madder Music, Stronger Wine: The Life of Ernest Dowson, Poet and Decadent (London: I. B. Tauris, 2000), p. 145.

  92 Whisky and beer for fools: Desmond Flower and Henry Maas, eds., The Letters
of Ernest Dowson (Cranbury, NJ: Associated University Presses, 1967), p. 441.

  92 The sight of young Englishmen: Plarr, Ernest Dowson 1888–1897, p. 23.

  92 We will cut a long story short: Ibid., p. 103.

  93 Absinthe has the power of the magicians: Flower and Maas, eds., The Letters of Ernest Dowson, p. 441.

  93 exceedingly violent poison: Gustave Flaubert, The Dictionary of Accepted Ideas, trans. Jacques Barzun (New York: New Directions, 1967), p. 13.

  93 conquered my neuralgia: Flower and Maas, eds., The Letters of Ernest Dowson, p. 175.

  93 you here again, Mr. Dowson: Adams, Madder Music, Stronger Wine, p. 102.

  93 sober, he was the most gentle: Arthur Symons, Studies in Prose and Verse (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1922), p. 267.

  93 to be always a little drunk: Adams, Madder Music, Stronger Wine, p. 23.

  94 I tighten my belt: Ibid., p. 117.

  94 so persistently and perversely wonderful: Ibid., p. 144.

  94 one of the high priests: H. Montgomery Hyde, ed., The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde (London: University Press, 1948), p. 12.

  95 Nothing but my genius: H. Montgomery Hyde, Oscar Wilde: A Biography (London: Methuen, 1975), p. 63.

  95 We spend our days: Oscar Wilde, The Complete Writings of Oscar Wilde: What Never Dies, trans. Henry Zick (New York: Pearson, 1909), p. 88.

  95 He dressed as probably no grown man: Harry Paul Jeffers, Diamond Jim Brady: Prince of the Gilded Age (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2001), p. 50.

  95 caricature is the tribute: Robert Andrews, ed., The Concise Columbia Dictionary of Quotations (New York: Columbia University Press, 1989), p. 39.

  96 the power of my affection for Oscar Wilde: Hyde, Oscar Wilde: A Biography, p. 213.

  96 posing as somdomite: Ibid., p. 252.

  97 blackmailers and male prostitutes: Neil McKenna, The Secret Life of Oscar Wilde (New York: Basic Books, 2006), p. 381

  97 a particularly plain boy: Gustaaf Johannes Renier, Oscar Wilde (Edinburgh: P. Davies Ltd., 1933), p. 115.

  97 no such thing as a moral: Hyde, ed., The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde, p. 109.

  97 the train has gone: Ibid., p. 152.

  98 the love that dare not speak its name: Ibid., p. 209.

  98 procurer of young men: Ibid., p. 123.

  98 there is not a man or woman: Gary Schmidgall, The Stranger Wilde (New York: Dutton, 1994), p. 273.