Bluebirds by Catulle Mendès (1841-1909), here delightfully translated for the first time into English by Brian Stableford, is fascinating, not only because it illustrates a particular evolution within the pattern of the author's own works, but because that pattern reflects a more general one associated with the evolution from the French Romanticism of the first half of the nineteenth century to the Decadent and Symbolist Movements of the fin-de-siècle. Mendès was one of the key figures in the latter phases of that process of development, launching his literary career in the 1860s under the patronage of Théophile Gautier, whose daughter Judith he married--much against her father's wishes--in 1866, and then becoming a leading figure among the "Parnassians" who attempted a renewal and revivification of Romantic ideals, before he entered wholeheartedly into the Decadent Movement launched in the 1880s. The stories in the present collection extend over a linear spectrum, moving by degrees from the affected sentimentality of Romanticism to a darker and somewhat jaundiced world-view that illustrates the Decadent sensibility very well, although all the stories were written in advance of the enormous fashionability that the sensibility in question achieved in the late 1880s.

Pour Lire Au Bai (1884) est un recueil de po�����mes �����crit par l'auteur fran�����ais Catulle Mendes. Les po�����mes sont caract�����ris�����s par leur style lyrique et leur th�����me romantique. Le titre du livre est un jeu de mots sur ""pour lire au lit"", sugg�����rant que les po�����mes sont destin�����s ������ ������tre lus dans un endroit confortable et intime. Les po�����mes se concentrent sur des th�����mes tels que l'amour, la beaut�����, la nature et la mort. Les po�����mes sont �����crits en vers libres et en prose po�����tique. Le livre a �����t����� bien accueilli par la critique de l'�����poque et est consid�����r����� comme l'un des meilleurs travaux de Mendes.This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the old original and may contain some imperfections such as library marks and notations. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions, that are true to their original work.