The Dedalus Book of Russian Decadence

A journey to the dark side in this collection of horrifying dramatic and erotic stories and poetry never before translated into English, delving into the darkest depths of humanity. This read is definitely not for the faint hearted, with its morbid tales of death, cruelty, sensuality and corruption.' Kate Griffin in The Big Issue 'By the end of the 19th century hope in Russia that literature might have provided either political or spiritual salvation had withered, leaving writers ripe to fall under the spell of JK Huysmans' apocalyptic decadence. The French-born movement, which espoused the notion that 'civilisation is in decline, reality as it exists is contemptible, and that the decadent hero, who is neurotic and sexually deviant, must create an alternative world for himself alone', had a direct appeal to writers such as Valery Briusov and Feodor Sologub. However, what overthrew that civilisation ensured that a literature concerned with 'perversity, despair and collapse' was...