Gerard Reve (*1923) describes himself as a Romantic-Decadent writer. A unique voice in Western European literature as a whole, who may prove the greatest stylist the Dutch language has yet seen this century. Several of his novels, such as 'De Avonden' ('The Evenings'; 1947), 'Nader tot U ('Nearer to Thee'; 1966) and 'De Taal der Liefde' ('The Language of Love'; 1972) have become widely acknowledged classics in his own lifetime, while concepts and sayings from his work have gone into the language as 'Revian', in a manner similar to the way things 'Dickensian' or 'Shavian' have gone into English. Never one to shy from controversy, his work and public pronouncements have probably garnered him as much opprobrium as fame. His latest novel, 'Bezorgde Ouders' (1988), appeared in English under the title 'Parents Worry' in 1990. The novella Werther Nieland was first published in 1949.
Arthur van Schendel (1874-1946) was a writer of religious, historical and naturalist fiction. Attracted to symbolism in his early work, in his mature novels he turns to a very personal form of naturalist fiction as exemplified in 'Een Hollands Drama' ('A Dutch Drama'; 1935) and the two related novels that followed, 'De Rijke Man' ('The Rich Man') and 'De Grauwe Vogels' ('The Ashen Birds'): three penetrating, dour studies of the relentless ordinariness of life for ordinary people, their existence ruled and confounded by unanswerable questions of fate, heredity, sin, free will and God's grace. 'De Witte Vrouw' ('The White Woman') was included in the collection Nachtgedaanten of 1938.
Willem Schurmann (Willem Fredrik; 1876-1915), Rotterdam-born playwright, son of a wealthy merchant. Author of five plays which enjoyed a degree of success, and of a number of works in prose, among which a two volume, part-autobiographical novel 'De Berkelmans' (1906). 'De Onevenwichtige Koning' ('The Unbalanced King') can be found in the collection De Beul of 1910.
Jan Siebelink (*1938) is a writer of novels and stories with at first a decadent and later on a more realist slant. 'Genegenheid' ('Affection') appeared in 1978 in the collection Weerloos.
P.F. Thomese (*1958) made his debut in 1990 with the collection of extended short stories called Zuidland for which he received the coveted AKO Prize. 'Leviathan' is the first from this collection.
Simon Vestdijk (1898-1971) was a ship's doctor for a short time before embarking on a lifetime of literary endeavour. Prolific author of essays, criticism, poetry, short stories, and novels such as 'De Koperen Tuin' (recently re-issued in English as 'The Garden where the Brass Band Played') and the extended cycle of 'Anton Wachter' novels. 'Het Stenen Gezicht' ('The Stone Face') was taken from De Dood Betrapt of 1935.
Jan Wolkers (*1925), as well as being a respected visual artist and sculptor, is a prolific writer of novels such as 'Turks Fruit' ('Turkish Delight') and 'Terug naar Oegstgeest' ('Return to Oegstgeest'), and of short stories. 'Gevederde Vrienden' ('Feathered Friends'; 1958) forms part of the collection Gesponnen Suiker.
Titles currently available are:
The Dedalus Book of Austrian Fantasy - editor Mike Mitchell
'Subtitled "The Meyrink Years 1890-1930', this is a of the bizarre, superb collection the terrifying and the twisted, as interpreted by the decadents and obsessives of fin de siecle Vienna. It features big names like Kafka, Rilke and Schnitzler, but more intriguing are the lesserknown writers such as Franz Theodor Csokor with the vampiric "The Kiss of the Stone Woman", Karl Hans Strobl, whose "The Wicked Nun" begins as a ghost story but twists and turns into insanity and Paul Busson, contributing an uncanny tale of feminine sorcery, "Folter's
Time Out
'Divided into five sections (Possessed Souls, Dream and Nightmare, Death, The Macabre, Satire) that tell you all you need to know, the stand out works are those of Gustav Meyrink, Strobl and Schnitzler and Franz Csokor's wonderful, mad chiller "The Kiss of the Stone Woman".
'The best stories faultlessly follow the traditional template of deepening mystery grafted onto time-honoured methods of signalling narrative action. Recommended'
City Limits
The Dedalus Book of British Fantasy,- editor Brian Stableford
Beginning in 1804 with Nathan Drake's `Henry Fitzowen,' The Dedalus Book of British Fantasy traces the development of the genre through the stories and poems of Coleridge, Keats, Dickens, Disraeli, William Morris, Christina Rosetti, Tennyson and Vernon Lee until the end of the century and Richard Garnett's `Alexander The Ratcatcher'.
Each text has been chosen to illustrate the development of the various aspects of fantasy in British Literature - the comic, the sentimental, the erotic and the allegorical - and the contribution that these authors made to the emergence of a new genre.
`there are a number of items which very few people will be familiar with that are real gems, John Sterling's "Chronicle of England" and Christina Rosetti's Goblin
Kaleidoscope, BBC Radio 4
The Dedalus Book of Decadence (Moral Ruins) - editor Brian Stableford
Every aspect of The Dedalus Book of Decadence (Moral Ruins) received praise, from the brown and gold of its cover (Times Higher Educational Supplement), the introduction (The Independent), the choice of stories (City Limits), and the whole book (Time Out). It was a critical and commercial success, which featured in the Alternative Bestsellers List.
A few comments:
,an invaluable sampler of spleen, everything from Baudelaire and Rimbaud to Dowson and Flecker. Let's hear it for luxe, calme et volupte'
Anne Billson in Time Out
'The Dedalus Book of Decadence looks south to sample the essence of fine French decadent writing. It succeeds in delivering a range of writers either searching vigorously for the thrill of a healthy crime or lamenting their impuissance from a sickly stupor.'
Andrew St George in The Independent
Tales of the Wandering Jew - editor Brian Stableford
`This homage to one of the world's great stories collects the Wandering Jew's many English-language manifestations, a fascinating journey down the tangled roads of European Literature, as infinite as those Ahasuerus is still walking. This collection offers you the chance to hitch a lift on the immortal sufferer's back. It's not the sort of offer anybody should turn down.'
City Limits
`Geoffrey Farrington's Little St Hugh is a wonderful 13th century tale of fury and repentance, with a touch of The Monk. The historical style is impeccable.
Ian MacDonald's Fragments of an Analysis of a Case of Hysteria is brilliantly written, mixing the early analyses of Freud, the Jew, and an evocative and disturbing foreshadowing of the Holocaust. Scott Edelman provides a bit of bizarre allegory with The Wandering Jukebox.
The whopper is the editor's own - Stableford's brilliant, appalling Innocent Blood. A heroin addict dying from AIDS, is chained up in a cellar by the Jew, and their relationship is a horror show of uncommunicated pain. Some powerful stuff here.'
Locus
£8.99 0 946626 71 5 384p B.Format
The legend of The Wandering Jew appears in several other books published by Dedalus: The Architect of Ruins - Hervert Rosendorfer; The Green Face - Gustav Meyrink; and The Wandering Jew - Eugene Sue
' These pieces of furniture amounted to (often ornately carved) wooden boxes, inside of which glowing coal could be stored, the resulting heat rising through holes in the top upon which the feet would be placed to warm. Tr.
' 'Make haste, the road is long. From now on we shall live a' the edge of the world, in a distant land remote from mine.' Tristia 1.3 Tr
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