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1902. A Frontispiece and numerous other portraits with descriptive notes by Octave Uzanne. The story begins: Upon the southern slope of one of those barren hills that rise abruptly here and there in the desolate expanse of the Landes, in Southwestern France, stood, in the reign of Louis XIII, a gentleman's residence, such as abound in Gascony, and which the country people dignify by the name of chateau. Two tall towers, with extinguisher tops, mounted guard at the angles of the mansion, and gave it rather a feudal air. The deep grooves upon its facade betrayed the former existence of a drawbridge, rendered unnecessary now by the filling up of the moat, while the towers were draped for more than half their height with a most luxuriant growth of ivy, whose deep, rich green contrasted happily with the ancient gray walls.Download Description
It was a sad picture; this last scion of a noble race, formerly rich and powerful, left wandering like an uneasy ghost in the castle of his ancestors, with but one faithful old servant remaining to him of the numerous retinue of the olden times; one poor old dog, half starved, and gray with age, where used to be a pack of thirty hounds ... Read more

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An influential novelist’s shocking tale of sexual deception draws readers into the bedrooms and boudoirs of a French château in a compelling exploration of desire and sexual intrigue.Download Description
Une oeuvre romantique, dont la préface fit scandale. Mademoiselle de Maupin est une jeune fille déguisée en homme! ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

A bisexual trouser role tour de force
One of the great, tho surprisingly little known, classics of french lit. I don't believe it's ever been filmed and it would make such a wonderfully modern comedy of manners and sexual politics. Written in the 19th century and surprisingly nouveau. It is possibly my own personal favorite novel, I have several editions and have read it many times. A woman masquerades as a man, in the grand, Shakespearean classic tradition and finds herself drawn to both men and women as they to her. Much homosexual panic and confusion ensues, esp. for the man who finds this intriguing young 'boy' so fascinating. His lover, an older woman, is equally attracted to the disguised girl. Where will it all end? The french invented the menage afterall. Intricately written with lots of social satire and commentary. An interesting footnote: this is the book that Mary is reading in "The Children's Hr." that 'inspires' her imagination which leads to her ratting out her teachers as lesbians.

a beautiful masterpiece
I am sixty years old, and although Gautier became one of my favorite writers when I was around eighteen years old, I never got around to reading his masterpiece until now.The long preface of this novel is more famous than the novel itself, but let us talk about the novel.It is not clear just when the action takes place, somewhere between 1650 and 1835, but it doesn't really take place in a particular period, nor does it take place in the real world.It is a sort of fantasy in spite of not having any supernatural elements.It is based in part on Shakespeare's As You Like It, with Rosalind and Orlando being replaced by Maupin and D'Albert.It is somewhat confusing, as the author switches viewpoints from chapter to chapter without warning.Sometimes it is Maupin speaking, sometimes D'Albert, sometimes the author.Gautier worshipped the beauty of the physical and artistic worlds, which is the whole point of the novel.He tends to identify beauty with female beauty, but there are also swans and roses and nightingales and the moon and so much else.It is the most romantic novel ever written.Some readers may be annoyed by Gautier's penchant for description.In one passage, he takes two whole pages just to describe an old tapestry which has nothing to do with the plot.One needs some footnotes if one is not perfectly familiar with all of the learned references that are scattered throughout the novel.In one passage, Gautier mentions a seraglio and a handkerchief being dropped.This refers to the habit of the Turkish sultan of going to his seraglio or harem and dropping a handkerchief in front of the bed partner he has chosen for the night.But Gautier assumes that the reader knows about this and doesn't explain it.There is a lot of what might be called pseudo-homosexuality in the novel, men and women falling in love with women who are disguised as men, only to find out in the end their true sexual identity.The anguish of D'Albert upon thinking that he is in love with a man reads awfully silly to modern audiences that find nothing wrong with this.But it turns out that everybody in the novel is really heterosexual.There is a sex scene at the end, but this novel is far from being pornographic.It used to have a reputation of being a Dirty French Novel, but faded from popularity in the United States after real pornography made people realize how tame Gautier is in comparison.He seems to have been more interested in art than life.He can think of nothing better to compare a beautiful woman to than a statue or painting of a woman.There is not the slightest vulgarity or lapse of taste anywhere in the novel.Some passages are breathtaking.It is a shame that this novel failed to catch fire when Joanna Richardson translated it for Penguin Classics in the early 1980s.It had previously been in Random House's Modern Library series with a dust jacket showing two pairs of shoes, one male and one female, left outside a hotel room door to be cleaned.Gautier's humor is dry and charming.I love this book, but don't expect to find hordes buying it.It is for the few.

One of the best books of the aesthetic movement
This book is an unequivocal celebration of Beauty--not the sentimental, middle-class idea of beauty, but the all-encompassing beauty to which the Aesthetic writers were enslaved.The prologue sets forth Gautier's cult of pure aesthetics, and the book is a fulfillment of every sublime principledelineated in the prologue.

The plot is relatively simple: Magdalene is awoman who is discontented with the traditional role of a woman, so shedresses as a man and ventures forth as "Theodore."An aesthete,D'albert, falls in love with her despite her male persona, and Magdalene inturn falls in love with his mistress Rosette.But it is much more complexthan that.It is a meditation on the nature of the muse, on thesubject-object relations in art, on the implications of gender politics, onthe eternal Aesthetic in both life and art. ... Read more

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Théophile Gautier is a dominant figure in nineteenth-century French literature and a complex and alluring one. No one so epitomized the “Bohemian artist” as this friend of Victor Hugo and Baudelaire who is credited with coining the slogan “Art for Art’s Sake.” At the same time, Gautier was one of the first French professional men of letters, a masterful journalist as well as an inspired proponent of the short story.

Seven samples of Gautier’s genius–all exploring themes of love and death–have been brought together in My Fantoms, a book that brilliantly illuminates the subtlety and range of his singular imagination. Compiled and translated by Richard Holmes, whose investigations into the Shelley, Coleridge, and Dr. Johnson have established him as the modern master of the art of biography, My Fantoms is not so much a collection of stories as a unified work spanning the whole of Gautier’s career and revealing his subtle and many faceted sensibility. From the erotic awakening of “The Adolescent” through the beautiful lament for the mad genius Gérard de Nerval that Gautier offers in “The Poet,” these are tales that celebrate the senses and investigate the spirit with style and wit. “What ever would the Devil find to do in Paris?” Gautier wonders. “He would meet people just as diabolical as he, and find himself taken for some naïve provincial . . .”

Tapestries, statues, and corpses come to life, young men dream their way into ruin, and through it all Gautier keeps his faith in the power of imagination: “No one is truly dead, until they are no longer loved.” ... Read more

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One Volume Edition. ... Read more

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There is, perhaps, scant apparent logic in treating a closed career more tenderly than an open one; but we suspect it belongs to the finer essence of good criticism to do so, and, at any rate, we find our judgment of the author of the Voyage en Espagne and the Capitaine Fracasse turning altogether to unprotesting kindness. We had a vague consciousness of lurking objections; but on calling them to appear, they gave no answer. Gautier's death, indeed, in the nature of things could not but be touching, and dispose one to large allowances.Download Description
There is, perhaps, scant apparent logic in treating a closed career more tenderly than an open one; but we suspect it belongs to the finer essence of good criticism to do so, and, at any rate, we find our judgment of the author of the Voyage en Espagne and the Capitaine Fracasse turning altogether to unprotesting kindness. We had a vague consciousness of lurking objections; but on calling them to appear, they gave no answer. Gautier's death, indeed, in the nature of things could not but be touching, and dispose one to large allowances. ... Read more