The Bohemians
Автор: Anne Gedeon Lafitte, Marquis de Pelleport
Год издания:
While the marquis de Sade was drafting The 120 Days of Sodom in the Bastille, another libertine marquis in a nearby cell was also writing a novel—one equally outrageous, full of sex and slander, and more revealing for what it had to say about the conditions of writers and writing itself. Yet Sade's neighbor, the marquis de Pelleport, is almost completely unknown today, and his novel, Les Bohémiens , has nearly vanished. Only a half dozen copies are available in libraries throughout the world. This edition, the first in English, opens a window into the world of garret poets, literary adventurers, down-and-out philosophers, and Grub Street hacks writing in the waning days of the Ancien Régime. The Bohemians tells the tale of a troupe of vagabond writer-philosophers and their sexual partners, wandering through the countryside of Champagne accompanied by a donkey loaded with their many unpublished manuscripts. They live off the land—for the most part by stealing chickens from peasants. They deliver endless philosophic harangues, one more absurd than the other, bawl and brawl like schoolchildren, copulate with each other, and pause only to gobble up whatever they can poach from the barnyards along their route. Full of lively prose, parody, dialogue, double entendre, humor, outrageous incidents, social commentary, and obscenity, The Bohemians is a tour de force. As Robert Darnton writes in his introduction to the book, it spans several genres and can be read simultaneously as a picaresque novel, a roman à clef, a collection of essays, a libertine tract, and an autobiography. Rediscovered by Darnton and brought gloriously back to life in Vivian Folkenflik's translation, The Bohemians at last takes its place as a major work of eighteenth-century libertinism.
The Bohemians of the Latin Quarter
Автор: Henri Murger
Год издания:
"Today, as of old, every man who enters on an artistic career, without any other means of livelihood than his art itself, will be forced to walk in the paths of Bohemia."—from the Preface Based largely upon Henri Murger's own experiences and those of his fellow artists, The Bohemians of the Latin Quarter was originally produced as a play in 1849 and first appeared in book form in 1851. It was an immediate sensation. The novel consists of a series of interrelated episodes in the lives of a group of poor friends—a musician, a poet, a philosopher, a sculptor, and a painter—who attempt to maintain their artistic ideals while struggling for food, shelter, and sex. Set in the ancient Latin Quarter, a vibrant and cosmopolitan area near the University of Paris, the novel is a masterful portrait of nineteenth-century Parisian artistic life. «Bohemian» soon became synonymous with «artist,» and it is from Murger's novel that the word and concept entered the English language. Drawn from real-life characters and events, the themes of love, sacrifice, and «selling out» are immediately recognizable to the modern reader. Capturing the heart, spirit, and bittersweet humor of the world of struggling artists, The Bohemians of the Latin Quarter is the universal story of one's attempt to leave a mark on the world.
Ballads of a Bohemian
Автор: Robert W. Service
Год издания:
Ballads of a Bohemian by Robert W. Service libreka classics – These are classics of literary history, reissued and made available to a wide audience. Immerse yourself in well-known and popular titles!