World Food Books

Art of Eroticism

1968, Japanese
Hardcover in hard slipcase, unpaginated, 19 x 13.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Futami Shobo / Japan

$160.00 - Out of stock

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Scarce hardcover, slipcased volume on the "Art of Eroticism", published only in Japan in 1968. An amazing history of humanity that collects erotic masterpieces from around the world. With illustrated slipcase by Japanese artist Kuniyoshi Kaneko, this book functions as a separate visual volume to Ove Brussendorf and Poul Henningsen's celebrated History of Eroticism, depicting sexual customs from ancient times to the present day with 700 illustrations reproduced on glossy stock.

Very Good copy with general age and some wear to slipcase. Book well-preserved!

File under: Hans Bellmer Pierre Molinier René Magritte Kuniyoshi Kaneko Futami Shobo / Japan Ero Guro / Erotic / Grotesque Eros Out-of-print / Rare Theory / Essay Painting Drawing Surrealism Transgressive / Visceral / Abject Symbolism / Decadence / Fin de siècle Art Fetishism / BDSM LGBTQ+

The Raven
by Edgar Allan Poe; Illustrated by Gustave Doré

1972, English / Japanese
Hardcover (w. slipcase), 76 pages, 27 x 19 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Bara Juijisha / Tokyo Rose Cross Society / Tokyo

$150.00 - Out of stock

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First edition, first printing of this deluxe slipcased bi–lingual English/Japanese edition of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven, published by the legendary countercultural and bibliophile press Bara Juijisha in 1972. A striking collector’s edition designed by Jun Kusakari in its original slipcase, featuring the monumental illustrations of Gustave Doré.

Originally published in 1845, The Raven remains one of Poe’s defining works—a masterpiece of melancholy, obsession, loss and psychological horror. Doré’s celebrated series of dark, monumental engravings, created for the posthumous 1884 luxury edition, perfectly complements Poe’s vision of grief and death, with shifting shadows and stark, haunting imagery, reproduced herein. Corresponding passages in English and Japanese adjacent each leaf of Dore's fantastic imagery, the poem is also presented in full in English at the back of volume, then the bi-lingual poem with illustrations in traditional Western order, and then the full poem again in Japanese. The celebrated, distinctive Japanese translation by poet and scholar Hinatsu Kōnosuke (1890–1971), known for his romantic and gothic poetry, is rendered in dense, highly stylised pseudo-classical Japanese (Gikobun), employing archaic language and complex kanji compounds to recreate the ominous rhythm and Gothic atmosphere of Poe’s original.

Published by Mitsuko Naito’s Rose Cross Society, a cult Japanese publisher known for beautifully produced editions of esoteric, literary and unconventional material, this is an unusually attractive example of the edition, combining Poe’s immortal poem, Doré’s extraordinary imagery and Hinatsu’s mesmerising translation.

VG copy in VG slipcase, with light foxing to block edge.

File under: Gustave Doré Jun Kusakari Edgar Allan Poe Hinatsu Kōnosuke Bara Juijisha / Tokyo Rose Cross Society / Tokyo Ancient / Medieval / Gothic Symbolism / Decadence / Fin de siècle Out-of-print / Rare Illustration / Graphic Art / Bandes Dessinées Art Fiction / Poetry

The Tarantulas' Parlor: and Other Unkind Tales
by Léon Bloy

2016, English
Softcover, 248 pages, 21.6 x‎ 13.97 cm
Published by Snuggly Books / UK

$42.00 - In stock -

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Translated by Brian Stableford

Praised by Borges, the Unkind Tales of Léon Bloy were produced in a phase of literary evolution that was exploratory and experimental, and hence intrinsically exciting. Lingering on the frontiers of Decadence, Naturalism, and Symbolism, these stories of the damned and the foolish, of terrible fates and ludicrous situations, helped map out the terrain of the conte cruel and are, probably, the author’s most noteworthy work.

In this, an authoritative translation of the volume originally published as Histories désobligeantes, Brian Stableford, in both his insightful introduction and his superb rendering of the tales, shines a much-needed light on Bloy’s savage genius.

File under: Brian Stableford Léon Bloy Snuggly Books / UK Weird / Speculative / Science Fiction Fiction / Poetry Symbolism / Decadence / Fin de siècle

Imaginary Lives
by Marcel Schwob

2018, English
Softcover, 192 pages, 11.4 x 17.8 cm
Published by Wakefield Press / Cambridge

$35.00 - In stock -

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Imaginary Lives remains, over 120 years since its original publication in French, one of the secret keys to modern literature: under-recognised, yet a decisive influence on such writers as Apollinaire, Borges, Jarry, Artaud, Bolano and Echenoz. These 22 portraits present figures drawn from the margins of history, from Empedocles the “Supposed God” and Clodia the “Licentious Matron” to the pirate Captain Kidd and the Scottish murderers Messrs. Drawing from historical influences such as Plutarch and Diogenes Laërtius, and authors more contemporary to him such as Thomas De Quincey and Walter Pater, Schwob established the genre of fictional biography with this collection: a form of narrative that championed the specificity of the individual over the generality of history, and the memorable detail of a vice over the forgettable banality of a virtue.

Mayer André Marcel Schwob, known as Marcel Schwob (23 August 1867 – 26 February 1905), was a Jewish French symbolist writer best known for his short stories and his literary influence on authors such as Jorge Luis Borges and Roberto Bolaño. He has been called a "precursor of Surrealism". In addition to over a hundred short stories, he wrote journalistic articles, essays, biographies, literary reviews and analysis, translations and plays. He was extremely well known and respected during his life and notably befriended a great numbers of intellectuals and artists of the time.

File under: Marcel Schwob Wakefield Press / Cambridge Fiction / Poetry Surrealism Symbolism / Decadence / Fin de siècle

The King in the Golden Mask
by Marcel Schwob

2017, English
Softcover, 176 pages, 11.4 x 17.8 cm
Published by Wakefield Press / Cambridge

$35.00 - In stock -

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Translated with introduction by Kit Schluter.

First published in French in 1892 and never before translated fully into English, The King in the Golden Mask gathers together twenty-one of Marcel Schwob’s cruelest and most erudite tales. Melding the fantastic with historical fiction, these stories swarm around moments of unexplained violence both historical and imaginary, often blending the two through Schwob’s collaging of primary source documents into fiction. Brimming with murder, suicide, royal leprosy, and medieval witchcraft, this collection describes for us historically attested clergymen furtively attending medieval sabbaths, Protestant galley slaves laboring under the persecution of Louis XIV, a ten-year-old French viscountess seeking vengeance for her unwilled espousal to a money-grubbing French lord, and dice-tumbling sons of Florentine noblemen wandering Europe at the height of the 1374 plague. These writings are of such hallucinatory detail and linguistic specificity that the reader is left wondering whether they aren’t newly unearthed historical documents. To read Schwob is to encounter human history in its most scintillating and ebullient form as it comes into contact with his unparalleled imagination.

Marcel Schwob (1867–1905) was a scholar of startling breadth and an incomparable storyteller. A secret influence on generations of writers, from Guillaume Apollinaire and Jorge Luis Borges to Roberto Bolaño, Schwob was as versed in the street slang of medieval thieves as he was in the poetry of Walt Whitman. His allegiances were to Rabelais and François Villon, Robert Louis Stevenson and Edgar Allan Poe. Paul Valéry and Alfred Jarry both dedicated their first books to him, and in doing so paid tribute to the author who could evoke both the intellect of Leonardo da Vinci and the anarchy of Ubu Roi. He was also the uncle of Lucy Schwob, better remembered today as the Surrealist photographer Claude Cahun.

File under: Marcel Schwob Wakefield Press / Cambridge Fiction / Poetry Weird / Speculative / Science Fiction Surrealism Symbolism / Decadence / Fin de siècle

Monsieur Vénus
by Rachilde

2004, English
Softcover, 212 pages, 21.6 x 14 cm
Published by Modern Language Association of America / US

$55.00 - In stock -

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When the rich and well-connected Raoule de Vénérande becomes enamoured of Jacques Silvert, a poor young man who makes artificial flowers for a living, she turns him into her mistress and eventually into her wife. Raoule’s suitor, a cigar-smoking former hussar officer, becomes an accomplice in the complications that ensue.

A writer and cultural arbiter of a salon in France from the early 1880s until 1930, Rachilde (Marguerite Eymery) won celebrity with this scandalously decadent novel. An inversion of the Pygmalion story, the book was judged to be pornographic, and a Belgian court sentenced its author (in absentia) to two years in prison. Verlaine congratulated Rachilde on the invention of a new vice.

"The novel may still outrage some readers, but it has become a key text for students of fin de siecle literature, women writers, and gender studies." —English Showalter

Rachilde was the pen name and preferred identity of novelist and playwright Marguerite Vallette-Eymery (11 February 1860 – 4 April 1953). Born near Périgueux, Dordogne, Aquitaine, France during the Second French Empire, Rachilde went on to become a symbolist author and the most prominent women in literature associated with the Decadent Movement of fin de siècle France.

A diverse and challenging author, Rachilde's most famous work includes the darkly erotic novels Monsieur Vénus (1884), La Marquise de Sade (1887), and La Jongleuse (1900). She also wrote a 1928 monograph on gender identity, Pourquoi je ne suis pas féministe ("Why I am not a Feminist"). Her work was noted for being frank, fantastical, and always with a suggestion of autobiography underlying questions of gender, sexuality, and identity.

She said of herself, "I always acted as an individual, not thinking to found a society or to upset the present one."

File under: Rachilde Melanie Hawthorne Liz Constable Modern Language Association of America / US Fiction / Poetry Symbolism / Decadence / Fin de siècle Weird / Speculative / Science Fiction Eros

Atlas Anthology 3
Edited by Alastair Brotchie & Malcolm Green

1985, English
Softcover (w. paste-ins), 224 pages, 21 x 15 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Atlas Press / London

$100.00 - Out of stock

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"A chrestomathy of dicey enchantments.'—CITY LIMITS

Now rare, long out-of-print 1985 Atlas Anthology 3, edited by Alastair Brotchie & Malcolm Green. "Benign Pollution, Enthused Writing". The third production from the legendary Atlas Press, the third general anthology and the first book to be actually typeset (a very expensive business in those days).

Features: Hans Carl Artmann, Pierre Albert-Birot, Wolfgang Bauer, Konrad Bayer, Pierre Bettencourt, Peter Blegvad, Andre Breton, Jean-Pierre Brisset, Günter Brus, René Crevel, David Gascoyne, Alfred Jarry, James Kirkup, Karl Kraus, Jean Lorrain, Harry Mathews, Gustave Meyrink, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Georges Perec, Benjamin Peret, Oskar Panizza, Raymond Queneau, Jacques Rigaut, Herbert Rosendorfer, Raymond Roussel, Paul Scheerbart, Mathew Phipps Shiel, Kurt Schwitters, Boris Vian, Austryn Wainhouse, Robert Walser, Unica Zürn, Etcetera Etc.

"Here is a prose based on Romanticism, in this century focused around the early Expressionism and the Surrealist movement. It is a literature of unusual beauty and bitter humour, political (in the widest sense), it asserts a complete freedom of form and content. Neither 'cool', restrained nor boring! An important collection of unjustly neglected authors, past and present, which includes many who are seldom translated into English."

Highest recommendation.
Good—Very Good copy complete with all the paste-ins. General wear and tanning.

File under: Peter Blegvad Kurt Schwitters Günter Brus Pier Paolo Pasolini Unica Zürn Alastair Brotchie Malcolm Green Hans Carl Artmann Pierre Albert-Birot Wolfgang Bauer Konrad Bayer Andre Breton André Breton Unica Zürn Pierre Bettencourt Peter Blegvad Günter Brus René Crevel Jean-Pierre Brisset David Gascoyne Alfred Jarry James Kirkup Karl Kraus Jean Lorrain Robert Walser Georges Perec Benjamin Péret Gustave Meyrink Harry Mathews Raymond Queneau Jacques Rigaut Raymond Roussel Paul Scheerbart Boris Vian Oskar Panizza Herbert Rosendorfer Mathew Phipps Shiel Kurt Schwitters Austryn Wainhouse Atlas Press / London Dada Renaissance / Neoclassicism / Romanticism Symbolism / Decadence / Fin de siècle Surrealism Out-of-print / Rare Fiction / Poetry Art Concrete Poetry Poetry Philosophy Situationism / Lettrism Sociology / Politics Theory / Essay Weird / Speculative / Science Fiction

The Dedalus Book of Medieval Literature: the Grin of the Gargoyle
Edited & Translated by Brian Murdoch

1995, English
Softcover,‎ 259 pages,‎ 22.8 x 15.2 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Dedalus / Cambs

$35.00 - In stock -

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First 1995 edition.

Brian Murdoch provides an alternative view of the Middle Ages, showing the anarchy and decadence which lurked below the surface of a devout and conformist society. The grinning gargoyle, which mocked the solemnity of Gothic cathedrals, symbolises the violence, depravity and irreverence inherent in man which could not be suppressed by the church.

Texts translated from the prose, chronicles and verse of the period, such as the Trial of Gilles de Rais, Boccaccio's Decameron, I Have a Gentil Cok, A Black Mass and Metrical Verses on the Subject of his Prick, reveal the wilder aspects of medieval man. Brian Murdoch has assembled and translated texts from Medieval Latin, Old French, Italian, Scots Gaelic, Cornish, Old and Middle English, Old Irish and Welsh which will redefine the Middle Ages for the modern reader.

Brian Murdoch is Professor of German at the University of Stirling and a former Visiting Fellow of Trinity Hall, Cambridge, and of Magdalen College, Oxford, where he delivered the Waynflete Lecture in 1994. Primarily a specialist in medieval and renaissance literature (German, Latin, Celtic), he has also written on the literature of the world wars, and has translated classical and medieval Latin as well as medieval and modern German texts. He is the editor of The Dedalus Book of Medieval Literature and has translated for Dedalus, with his son Brian, the texts of The Dedalus Book of Roman Decadence.

VG–NF copy with block tanning.

File under: Brian Murdoch Dedalus / Cambs Symbolism / Decadence / Fin de siècle Out-of-print / Rare Weird / Speculative / Science Fiction Transgressive / Visceral / Abject Eros Ancient / Medieval / Gothic Occult / Esoterica

The Great God Pan
by Arthur Machen

1993, English
Softcover, 126 pages, 13.5 x 21.5 cm
Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Creation Books / London

$60.00 - Out of stock

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"An incoherent nightmare of sex..." That was The Westminster Gazette's description of Arthur Machen's first book, The Great God Pan, upon its publication in 1894. An unwittingly complimentary description for one of the greatest works of weird horror and decadence, in which Machen unfurls with his singular eye for the bizarre and macabre the tale of a young girl cursed by her unnatural parentage to become a creature of shape-shifting polysexual demi-human evil.

Wonderful collectable 1993 Creation Books reprint, with illustrations throughout by the great Austin Osman Spare.

Arthur Machen (1863 – 1947) was a Welsh author and mystic of the 1890s and early 20th century. He is best known for his influential supernatural, fantasy, and horror fiction. His novella The Great God Pan (1890; 1894) has garnered a reputation as a classic of horror, with Stephen King describing it as "Maybe the best [horror story] in the English language."

Very Good copy, light wear.

File under: Austin Osman Spare Arthur Machen Creation Books / London Fiction / Poetry Weird / Speculative / Science Fiction Out-of-print / Rare Eros Occult / Esoterica Symbolism / Decadence / Fin de siècle

James Ensor
Prints

1985, Japanese
Softcover, 80 pages, 33.5 x 26 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by The Museum Modern Art / Hyogo

$80.00 - Out of stock

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Rare major overview of James Ensor's astounding graphic work published on the occasion of a major 1985 Japanese exhibition at the Museum Modern Art in Hyogo, showcasing the prints held in their collection. Profusely illustrated with reproductions of Ensor's prints in an oversized softcover format, all catalogued in detail with an introductory text in Japanese. Lovely reproductions on warm paperstock.

James Sidney Edouard, Baron Ensor (13 April 1860 – 19 November 1949) was a Belgian painter and printmaker, an important influence on expressionism and surrealism who lived in Ostend for almost his entire life. He was associated with the artistic group Les XX. While Ensor's early works, such as Russian Music (1881) and The Drunkards (1883), depict realistic scenes in a somber style, his palette subsequently brightened and he favored increasingly bizarre subject matter. Such paintings as The Scandalized Masks (1883) and Skeletons Fighting over a Hanged Man (1891) feature figures in grotesque masks inspired by the ones sold in his mother's gift shop for Ostend's annual Carnival. Subjects such as carnivals, masks, puppetry, skeletons, and fantastic allegories are dominant in Ensor's mature work. Ensor dressed skeletons up in his studio and arranged them in colorful, enigmatic tableaux on the canvas, and used masks as a theatrical aspect in his still lifes. Attracted by masks' plastic forms, bright colors, and potential for psychological impact, he created a format in which he could paint with complete freedom. James Ensor is considered to be an innovator in 19th-century art. Although he stood apart from other artists of his time, he significantly influenced such 20th-century artists as Paul Klee, George Grosz, Wols, and many expressionist and surrealist painters of the 20th century.

Very Good copy.

File under: James Ensor The Museum Modern Art / Hyogo Art Symbolism / Decadence / Fin de siècle Out-of-print / Rare Drawing Painting

Le Sang et La Rose No. 2, 1969

1969, Japanese / French
Softcover, 228 pages, 23 x 18 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Tensei Shuppan / Tokyo

$110.00 - Out of stock

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Revue de Érotologie, Homosexualité, Sadisme, Masochisme, Fétischisme, Narcissime, Infantilisme, Magie, Occultisme, Humour Noir, Complexe Psychisme. What more could you ask for? Le Sang Et La Rose is a masterpiece of the Japanese underground. A groundbreaking, powerful, yet short-lived Japanese arts and literary journal published in Tokyo from late 1968—mid 1969, published in a total of four luxurious, now collectible, volumes. The first three issues were edited by Tatsuhiko Shibusawa (1928—1987), a legendary, controversial Japanese novelist, art critic, translator of French writers such as Jean Cocteau, Georges Bataille and Marquis de Sade, and specialist in medieval demonology. The importance of this magazine to the Japanese avant-garde and radical culture cannot be overstated.

Born from a period of political, social and economical turmoil in Japan, Le Sang Et La Rose may be understood as a emblematic distillation and product of the late ‘60s student rebellion and anti-authoritarian underground culture. Wilfully politically subversive, the publication drew upon a vast range of perspectives - from criticism, literature, obscure esoteric sciences, art, eroticism, radical avant-garde and a historical-rooted Japanese counterculture; featuring literature, theory, art, photography, illustration and graphic design from the most innovative and subversive Japanese and international (predominately French) artists, authors and critics, spanning the themes above. As instigator, Tatsuhiko Shibusawa in effect formulated the magazine’s design to be a spiritual and political operative that would weaponize its readers minds. This stance was made clear in the 1969 manifesto text — "My 1969" — in which Shibusawa discuss' how he perceived the ‘60s as being the age of ideas, ideas as weapons, and outlined a distain towards systems of power, moralism, State oppression, sanitised and harmless liberalism, dogmatic academic sciences and an outright distrust for ideological, progressive literary scholars who advocate "freedom of expression", but have never caused friction with the judicial power. The magazine sketched out an aim to push towards a new kind of personal freedom, intellect, autonomy and moral compass. Here, the concept of ‘erotism’ — as discussed by Georges Bataille in his highly influential 1957 book "Erotism: Death and Sensuality" — acts as a critical force. 

Issue no. 2 includes photographic features by Yasuhiro Yoshioka and Yoshihiro Tatsuki, the artwork of French decorator of department store mannequins and surrealist Sunday painter Clovis Trouille, Venus in Furs erotic photo shoot by Yasuhiro Ishimoto, Yokoo Tadanori, Hans Bellmer, Leonor Fini, Alberto Martini, Félicien Rops, Rene Magritte, an incredible feature "Machine for Murder" with art by Hiroshi Nakamura, Tomi Ungerer, Koichi Tanigawa, Osamu Tsukasa, Tatsuo Ikeda, Marcel Duchamp, Seiichi Horiuchi, and others, an article on the erotica of Ukiyo-e with a fold-out colour three panel poster, the fully illustrated museum supplement on Demonology by Tatsuhiko Shibusawa with artworks throughout history, texts by Apollinaire, Burroughs, Mutsuo Takahashi, articles on laws pertaining to homosexuality, Kama Sutra, shoe fetishism, and much more.

Tatsuhiko Shibusawa (1928—1987), was a well-known and controversial Japanese novelist, art critic, and translator of French writers such as Jean Cocteau, Georges Bataille and Marquis de Sade. In 1960 he and his publisher, Kyōji Ishii, were trialled for public obscenity over the publishing of Shibusawa's translation of de Sade's Juliette into the Japanese language. What was to be known as the "Sade Trial" took 9 years and although many of Japan's leading authors testified for the defense, in 1969 the Japanese Supreme Court ruled them guilty and charged. This did not deter Shibusawa, whose essays on black magic, demonology and eroticism were popular reading in Japan, and in 1981 he was awarded the 9th Izumi Kyoka Literature Prize.

Good-Very Good copy. Light general tanning/wear. Some rippling to back cover.

File under: Yoshihiro Tatsuki Clovis Trouille Tadanori Yokoo Yasuhiro Yoshioka Yokoo Tadanori Hans Bellmer Leonor Fini Alberto Martini Félicien Rops Rene Magritte Hiroshi Nakamura Tomi Ungerer Koichi Tanigawa Osamu Tsukasa Tatsuo Ikeda Marcel Duchamp Seiichi Horiuchi Yasuhiro Ishimoto Guillaume Apollinaire William S. Burroughs Georges Bataille Mutsuo Takahashi Tatsuhiko Shibusawa Tensei Shuppan / Tokyo Periodicals Eros LGBTQ+ Art Surrealism Counterculture Japanese Photography Photography Out-of-print / Rare Illustration / Graphic Art / Bandes Dessinées Theory / Essay Occult / Esoterica Fetishism / BDSM Ero Guro / Erotic / Grotesque Philosophy Fiction / Poetry Transgressive / Visceral / Abject Symbolism / Decadence / Fin de siècle Ancient / Medieval / Gothic

Le Sang et La Rose No. 3, 1969

1969, Japanese / French
Softcover, 232 pages, 23 x 18 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Tensei Shuppan / Tokyo

$110.00 - In stock -

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Revue de Érotologie, Homosexualité, Sadisme, Masochisme, Fétischisme, Narcissime, Infantilisme, Magie, Occultisme, Humour Noir, Complexe Psychisme. What more could you ask for? Le Sang Et La Rose is a masterpiece of the Japanese underground. A groundbreaking, powerful, yet short-lived Japanese arts and literary journal published in Tokyo from late 1968—mid 1969, published in a total of four luxurious, now collectible, volumes. The first three issues were edited by Tatsuhiko Shibusawa (1928—1987), a legendary, controversial Japanese novelist, art critic, translator of French writers such as Jean Cocteau, Georges Bataille and Marquis de Sade, and specialist in medieval demonology. The importance of this magazine to the Japanese avant-garde and radical culture cannot be overstated.

Born from a period of political, social and economical turmoil in Japan, Le Sang Et La Rose may be understood as a emblematic distillation and product of the late ‘60s student rebellion and anti-authoritarian underground culture. Wilfully politically subversive, the publication drew upon a vast range of perspectives - from criticism, literature, obscure esoteric sciences, art, eroticism, radical avant-garde and a historical-rooted Japanese counterculture; featuring literature, theory, art, photography, illustration and graphic design from the most innovative and subversive Japanese and international (predominately French) artists, authors and critics, spanning the themes above. As instigator, Tatsuhiko Shibusawa in effect formulated the magazine’s design to be a spiritual and political operative that would weaponize its readers minds. This stance was made clear in the 1969 manifesto text — "My 1969" — in which Shibusawa discuss' how he perceived the ‘60s as being the age of ideas, ideas as weapons, and outlined a distain towards systems of power, moralism, State oppression, sanitised and harmless liberalism, dogmatic academic sciences and an outright distrust for ideological, progressive literary scholars who advocate "freedom of expression", but have never caused friction with the judicial power. The magazine sketched out an aim to push towards a new kind of personal freedom, intellect, autonomy and moral compass. Here, the concept of ‘erotism’ — as discussed by Georges Bataille in his highly influential 1957 book "Erotism: Death and Sensuality" — acts as a critical force. 

Issue no. 3 (with cover by Bronzino, 1554) includes full-colour photographic feature by Kishin Shinoyama ("Virgin In Uniform" featuring models/artists Angela Asaoka, Akaji Maro, Yoko Ashikawa) and beautiful Shomei Tomatsu photo feature ("Scoptophilia"), the artwork of the great French cross-dressing painter-photographer Pierre Molinier, texts by Jirō Kawamura, Yumiko Kurahashi, Taruho Inagaki ("Memories of Hemorrhoids or "New Tsurezuregusa"), Akiyuki Nosaka ("Dear Penis, Goodbye"), Minoru Minamihara ("The Mystic Thought of Love in the Case of Jakob Böhme"), Takiji Kobayashi, The Fictitious Garden of Babylon by Tatsuhiko Shibusawa, Tsunekazu Murata ("Witch's Ax : Concerning Heresy in Medieval Europe"), translation of Franz Kafka "Metamorphosis" illustrated by Franco Gentilini, recent research on homosexuality by film critic Jin'ichi Uekusa, Kama Sutra, more Gay (Danshoku) Japanese Theater history, Marquise de Blancvilliers by Koji Nakata, and much more.

Tatsuhiko Shibusawa (1928—1987), was a well-known and controversial Japanese novelist, art critic, and translator of French writers such as Jean Cocteau, Georges Bataille and Marquis de Sade. In 1960 he and his publisher, Kyōji Ishii, were trialled for public obscenity over the publishing of Shibusawa's translation of de Sade's Juliette into the Japanese language. What was to be known as the "Sade Trial" took 9 years and although many of Japan's leading authors testified for the defense, in 1969 the Japanese Supreme Court ruled them guilty and charged. This did not deter Shibusawa, whose essays on black magic, demonology and eroticism were popular reading in Japan, and in 1981 he was awarded the 9th Izumi Kyoka Literature Prize.

Very Good copy. Light general tanning/wear.

File under: Kishin Shinoyama Shomei Tomatsu Pierre Molinier Franco Gentilini Yokoo Tadanori Angela Asaoka Akaji Maro Yoko Ashikawa Tatsuhiko Shibusawa Franz Kafka Yukio Mishima Taruho Inagaki Jun’nosuke Yoshiyuki Kôichi Iijima Jûrô Kara Ikuya Kato Minoru Yoshioka Ryûichi Tamura The Marquis de Sade Georges Bataille Andre Pieyre De Mandiargues Jirō Kawamura Yumiko Kurahashi Akiyuki Nosaka Minoru Minamihara Jakob Böhme Takiji Kobayashi Tsunekazu Murata Jin'ichi Uekusa Tensei Shuppan / Tokyo Ero Guro / Erotic / Grotesque Transgressive / Visceral / Abject Eros Fetishism / BDSM Out-of-print / Rare Periodicals Japanese Photography Surrealism Philosophy Theory / Essay Fiction / Poetry Symbolism / Decadence / Fin de siècle Ancient / Medieval / Gothic Art Counterculture Illustration / Graphic Art / Bandes Dessinées LGBTQ+ Occult / Esoterica Photography Sociology / Politics

Le Sang et La Rose No. 1, 1968

1968, Japanese / French
Softcover, 228 pages, 23 x 18 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Tensei Shuppan / Tokyo

$110.00 - Out of stock

(more...)

(...less)

Revue de Érotologie, Homosexualité, Sadisme, Masochisme, Fétischisme, Narcissime, Infantilisme, Magie, Occultisme, Humour Noir, Complexe Psychisme. What more could you ask for? Le Sang Et La Rose is a masterpiece of the Japanese underground. A groundbreaking, powerful, yet short-lived Japanese arts and literary journal published in Tokyo from late 1968—mid 1969, published in a total of four luxurious, now collectible, volumes. The first three issues were edited by Tatsuhiko Shibusawa (1928—1987), a legendary, controversial Japanese novelist, art critic, translator of French writers such as Jean Cocteau, Georges Bataille and Marquis de Sade, and specialist in medieval demonology. The importance of this magazine to the Japanese avant-garde and radical culture cannot be overstated.

Born from a period of political, social and economical turmoil in Japan, Le Sang Et La Rose may be understood as a emblematic distillation and product of the late ‘60s student rebellion and anti-authoritarian underground culture. Wilfully politically subversive, the publication drew upon a vast range of perspectives - from criticism, literature, obscure esoteric sciences, art, eroticism, radical avant-garde and a historical-rooted Japanese counterculture; featuring literature, theory, art, photography, illustration and graphic design from the most innovative and subversive Japanese and international (predominately French) artists, authors and critics, spanning the themes above. As instigator, Tatsuhiko Shibusawa in effect formulated the magazine’s design to be a spiritual and political operative that would weaponize its readers minds. This stance was made clear in the 1969 manifesto text — "My 1969" — in which Shibusawa discuss' how he perceived the ‘60s as being the age of ideas, ideas as weapons, and outlined a distain towards systems of power, moralism, State oppression, sanitised and harmless liberalism, dogmatic academic sciences and an outright distrust for ideological, progressive literary scholars who advocate "freedom of expression", but have never caused friction with the judicial power. The magazine sketched out an aim to push towards a new kind of personal freedom, intellect, autonomy and moral compass. Here, the concept of ‘erotism’ — as discussed by Georges Bataille in his highly influential 1957 book "Erotism: Death and Sensuality" — acts as a critical force. 

Issue no. 1 (1968) sets the scene perfectly, opening with Japanese author Yukio Mishima depicted as Saint Sebastian by photographer Kishin Shinoyama in a pictorial feature "Les Morts Masculines", a photographic homage to Georges Bataille that also features the photography of Eikoh Hosoe, Ikkō Narahara, Masahisa Fukase, and Osamu Hayasaki, with models including Butoh founder Tatsumi Hijikata, actor Akira Mita, author Tatsuhiko Shibusawa, actor Jin Nakayama, playwright Jūrō Kara, and others. Other features include " All Japanese are Perverse" — stories by Japanese writers including Yukio Mishima, Taruho Inagaki, Yutaka Haniya, Shinji Sōya; Henry Miller's letters to Anais Nin; a colour gallery of artwork by Belgian painter Paul Delvaux; articles on Vampire fantasy in the arts (including many original illustrations; Witches (illustrated by James Ensor); Oriental Eros, Ancient Indian poetry; Kama Sutra; female bi-sexuality; the history of gay (Danshoku) theatre in Japan; the full-colour art gallery "Masturbation Machine", featuring avant-garde artists Natsuyuki Nakanishi, Masuo Ikeda, Setsu Nagasawa, Carlos Marchioli, Kuniyoshi Kaneko, Masakazu Horiuchi, Tadanori Yokoo, Koji Suzuki, Tommy Ungerer; the fully illustrated museum supplement "Pain and Pleasure : On Torture" by Tatsuhiko Shibusawa with artworks throughout history; pornographic stories by Guillaume Apollinaire and Nicolas Restif de la Bretonne (who coined the term "Pornographer"); fiction by Pierre Morion (pseudo. André Pieyre de Mandiargues); critic Jin'ichi Uekusa on the controversial writings of Roger Peyrefitte, illustrations by Ernst, Bellmer, Labisse, Fini, Lam, and much more.

Tatsuhiko Shibusawa (1928—1987), was a well-known and controversial Japanese novelist, art critic, and translator of French writers such as Jean Cocteau, Georges Bataille and Marquis de Sade. In 1960 he and his publisher, Kyōji Ishii, were trialled for public obscenity over the publishing of Shibusawa's translation of de Sade's Juliette into the Japanese language. What was to be known as the "Sade Trial" took 9 years and although many of Japan's leading authors testified for the defense, in 1969 the Japanese Supreme Court ruled them guilty and charged. This did not deter Shibusawa, whose essays on black magic, demonology and eroticism were popular reading in Japan, and in 1981 he was awarded the 9th Izumi Kyoka Literature Prize.

Good copy with some spine damage and tanning/wear.

File under: Max Ernst Léonor Fini Felix Labisse Wilfredo Lam Hans Bellmer Paul Delvaux Natsuyuki Nakanishi Masuo Ikeda Setsu Nagasawa Carlos Marchioli Kuniyoshi Kaneko Masakazu Horiuchi Tadanori Yokoo Koji Suzuki Tommy Ungerer Tatsumi Hijikata Tatsuhiko Shibusawa Eikoh Hosoe Ikkō Narahara Masahisa Fukase Osamu Hayasaki Kishin Shinoyama James Ensor Tatsuhiko Shibusawa Jin'ichi Uekusa Roger Peyrefitte Yukio Mishima Taruho Inagaki Yutaka Haniya Shinji Sōya Henry Miller Suehiro Tanemura Guillaume Apollinaire Andre Pieyre De Mandiargues Nicolas Restif de la Bretonne Jūrō Kara Tensei Shuppan / Tokyo Fiction / Poetry Japanese Photography Occult / Esoterica Philosophy Photography Art Illustration / Graphic Art / Bandes Dessinées Fetishism / BDSM LGBTQ+ Eros Ero Guro / Erotic / Grotesque Out-of-print / Rare Periodicals Counterculture Surrealism Symbolism / Decadence / Fin de siècle Transgressive / Visceral / Abject Ancient / Medieval / Gothic

Spicilege
By Marcel Schwob

2022, English
Softcover, 224 pages, 13.5 x 20.3 cm
Published by Wakefield Press / Cambridge

$36.00 - In stock -

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Exquisitely crafted essays on medieval criminal slang, ancient Greek prostitution, laughter, anarchy and more from the endlessly influential Marcel Schwob.

"All over the world," wrote Jorge Luis Borges, "there are devotees of the writer Marcel Schwob who constitute little secret societies." Spicilege, Schwob's last book published under his name, constitutes the handbook to these societies--to Schwob's work, to himself as erudite scholar and author, and to the twilight of the era of French Symbolism. Schwob was, as Paul Léautaud described him, a "living library," and the critical biographies gathered in the essays of Spicilege display a few of the volumes in that library: his groundbreaking research on François Villon (work that remains a cornerstone to our knowledge of Villon), his passion for Robert Louis Stevenson and his encounters with such less-remembered writers as George Meredith. But it is the carefully developed ideas in these essays and the eccentric yet thorough scholarship that draws them together that are of particular interest today: the understanding of criminal slang in the Middle Ages; the study of prostitution in ancient Greece; the folklore inspired by a Flaubert story; a complex critique of individuality that effectively laid the groundwork for Jarry's "pataphysics"; as well as ruminations on perversity, laughter, biography, love, terror and pity, and art and anarchy.

Marcel Schwob (1867-1905) was a scholar of startling breadth, an incomparable storyteller and a secret influence on generations of writers, from Apollinaire and Borges to Roberto Bolaño and J. Rodolfo Wilcock.

Translated by Alex Andriesse.

File under: Marcel Schwob Alex Andriesse Wakefield Press / Cambridge Fiction / Poetry Weird / Speculative / Science Fiction Theory / Essay Symbolism / Decadence / Fin de siècle

The Demon of the Absurd
by Rachilde; Preface by Marcel Schwob

2024, English
Softcover, 142 pages, 20.4 x 12.7 cm
Published by Snuggly Books / UK

$44.00 - In stock -

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There is no other reality than things invented by an inimitable imagination. Everything else is foolishness or error... If Rachilde is the only one to be frightened by mirrors, to contemplate in the glory of the sunset or the hermetic castle where she will never enter, to experience the pangs of death for a pulled tooth, it is because she sees further than we. The master of the absurd has entered our bodies, according to Jesus’ permission, and our sight has become obscured. If Rachilde’ s tales seem absurd to the demon named “Legion,” we can be sure that they contain an invaluable part of the truth.

Thus wrote Marcel Schwob in his introduction to Rachilde’ s classic collection of Decadent stories, The Demon of the Absurd, first published in 1894 and here presented for the first time in English, in a translation by Shawn Garrett.

These tales and pièces de théâtre, uniting tragedy and comedy, horror and deep mystery, in their sum total, represent a major work by the Queen of Decadence.

“Rachilde” was the pen name of Marguerite Vallette-Eymery (1860–1953), one of the most important writers of the Decadent Movement. Her works include the novels Monsieur Vénus (1884), and The Princess of Darkness (1895), the latter book being written under the pseudonym Jean de Chilra. She also wrote a 1928 monograph on gender identity, Pourquoi je ne suis pas féministe (“Why I am not a Feminist”).

About the Translator: Shawn Garrett is a freelance editor, critic and short fiction aficionado. He currently co-edits the horror fiction podcast Pseudopod and posts weekly columns with Rue Morgue. His translations include Robert Scheffer’ s Prince Narcissus and Other Stories (Snuggly Books, 2019), and Gabriel Mourey’ s Monada (Snuggly Books, 2021).

File under: Rachilde Marcel Schwob Shawn Garrett Snuggly Books / UK Symbolism / Decadence / Fin de siècle Weird / Speculative / Science Fiction Fiction / Poetry

The Blood-Guzzler and Other Stories
by Rachilde

2024, English
Softcover, 126 pages, 17.8 x 12.8 cm
Published by Snuggly Books / UK

$40.00 - In stock -

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Rachilde was the pseudonym employed by Marguerite Eymery (1860—1953). Though remembered today primarily for her novels, which include the Decadent masterpiece Monsieur Vénus (1884), for which was prosecuted as pornography in Belgium, where it was initially published, resulting in a conviction and a sentence of two years’ imprisonment imposed in absentia. She was, however, also an exceptional writer of short fiction. The current volume, adeptly translated by Sue Boswell, brings together six of her short stories, none of which have previously appeared in English. This array of strange, Symbolist tales, sometimes brutal, always bizarre, strikes with a deep psychological power and deft artistry.

The work of a true genius, The Blood-Guzzler and Other Stories is an important addition to the writings of the Queen of Decadence available in English.

Rachilde was the pen name and preferred identity of novelist and playwright Marguerite Vallette-Eymery (11 February 1860 – 4 April 1953). Born near Périgueux, Dordogne, Aquitaine, France during the Second French Empire, Rachilde went on to become a symbolist author and the most prominent women in literature associated with the Decadent Movement of fin de siècle France.

A diverse and challenging author, Rachilde's most famous work includes the darkly erotic novels Monsieur Vénus (1884), La Marquise de Sade (1887), and La Jongleuse (1900). She also wrote a 1928 monograph on gender identity, Pourquoi je ne suis pas féministe ("Why I am not a Feminist"). Her work was noted for being frank, fantastical, and always with a suggestion of autobiography underlying questions of gender, sexuality, and identity.

She said of herself, "I always acted as an individual, not thinking to found a society or to upset the present one."

File under: Rachilde Snuggly Books / UK Weird / Speculative / Science Fiction Fiction / Poetry Symbolism / Decadence / Fin de siècle

The Princess of Darkness
by Rachilde

2023, English
Softcover, 266 pages, 21.6 x 13.8 cm
Published by Snuggly Books / UK

$46.00 - Out of stock

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Translated by Brian Stableford

Rachilde, the writer whose formal name was Marguerite Vallette-Eymery (1860-1853), is primarily remembered today for her sensational decadent novel Monsieur Vénus (1884), which was prosecuted as pornography in Belgium, where it was initially published, resulting in a conviction and a sentence of two years’ imprisonment imposed in absentia. She was, however, the author of numerous other works which, though less well-known, are of equal and sometimes even greater excellence.

One of the best and most striking of these is The Princess of Darkness (1895), here presented for the first time in English, in a superb translation by Brian Stableford. The novel, unquestionably one of the most daring works to come out of the Symbolist and Decadent movements, was written under Rachilde’ s other pseudonym, Jean de Chilra, and is at once a profound psychological study and a neo-Gothic masterpiece, featuring a haunted house and a family curse and other much more unusual motifs that are calculated to alienate readers as well as to challenge them, in a frightening treasure that any connoisseur of perversity is bound to savor and to think precious.

Rachilde was the pen name and preferred identity of novelist and playwright Marguerite Vallette-Eymery (11 February 1860 – 4 April 1953). Born near Périgueux, Dordogne, Aquitaine, France during the Second French Empire, Rachilde went on to become a symbolist author and the most prominent women in literature associated with the Decadent Movement of fin de siècle France.

A diverse and challenging author, Rachilde's most famous work includes the darkly erotic novels Monsieur Vénus (1884), La Marquise de Sade (1887), and La Jongleuse (1900). She also wrote a 1928 monograph on gender identity, Pourquoi je ne suis pas féministe ("Why I am not a Feminist"). Her work was noted for being frank, fantastical, and always with a suggestion of autobiography underlying questions of gender, sexuality, and identity.

She said of herself, "I always acted as an individual, not thinking to found a society or to upset the present one."

File under: Rachilde Brian Stableford Snuggly Books / UK Weird / Speculative / Science Fiction Symbolism / Decadence / Fin de siècle Fiction / Poetry

Symbolists and Decadents
by John Milner

1971, English
Softcover, 160 pages, 18.5 x 12.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Studio Vista / London E P Dutton / New York

$20.00 - Out of stock

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Lovely first print 1971 copy of the Studio Vista/Dutton Pictureback book on Symbolists and Decadents by John Milner. A profusely illustrated study, almost a concise accompaniment to Philippe Jullian's study the same year.

"Thinkers, writers and artists in late-nineteenth-century Europe were impelled by their distrust of the growing materialism of their age towards a search for truths that were of personal and universal significance. The artist embarked on an interior journey and endeavoured to represent his experience of it in an art that would give body and form to emotions and dreams.

Originally a literary movement, Symbolism was born out of this inward search as writers and artists portrayed the longings and nightmares which epitomized the preoccupations of the fin de siècle death and frustration, union and conflict of the sexes, cruel or superfluous beauty, the fatal woman, the siren and the sphinx.

In this new introduction to these fascinating and highly individual artists John Milner traces the Symbolist and Decadent movements from the forerunners in the Pre-Raphaelite movement through the Synthetists (Gauguin and the Pont-Aven group), the Rose +Croix, the German and Austrian Secessions, the personal and fantastic vision of artists such as Odilon Redon and Arnold Böcklin.

Both Symbolist and Decadent painters were concerned with the expression of ideas, mood and emotions. The Decadents, however, in their reaction to a pragmatist and materialist age, withdrew into an exclusive dandyism, and embraced the twin rituals of Catholicism and diabolism; while the search for significance in the forms of Symbolist art was the shadow of a seeking for meaning and spiritual experience in a time of good sense and clear-cut ideas.

Artists of France, Germany, Austria, Belgium, Holland and Britain are represented here with 115 compelling illustrations."

John Milner is a Lecturer in Art History at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne.

Very Good copy.

File under: Odilon Redon Arnold Böcklin Paul Gaugin James Ensor Gustav Klimt Fernand Khnopff Félicien Rops Jean Delville Jan Toorop John Milner Edgar Allan Poe Charles Baudelaire Oscar Wilde Algernon Charles Swinburne Studio Vista / London E P Dutton / New York Symbolism / Decadence / Fin de siècle Out-of-print / Rare Art Painting Sculpture / Installation Literary Theory / Semiotics / Language Group Shows / Collections

Le symbolisme en Belgique
by Francine-Claire Legrand

1971, French
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 276 pages, 24 x 20 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by Laconti / Brussels

$50.00 - In stock -

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Curator at the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium in Brussels, Francine-Claire Legrand (Brussels, 1916–Saint-Gilles, 1995) was in charge of the modern art department. Published in 1971, her Le symbolisme en Belgique was and remains a pioneering work in which the author traces the history of the multiple trends that were developing in Belgium at that time. She brought them all together under the single concept of symbolism. Studies on Belgian symbolism have long relied on this groundbreaking work. Profusely illustrated in colour and b/w. That same year, the Belgian art historian published her first study on James Ensor, this unknown artist who became her favorite. She made a significant contribution to renewing the way we view the works of the Ostend painter created after 1900.

Good copy in Average DJ, moisture damage to boards and DJ (rippling), otherwise all-round good copy.

File under: Félicien Rops James Ensor Léon Spilliaert Antoine Wiertz Xavier Mellery Fernand Khnopff Francine-Claire Legrand Laconti / Brussels Painting Arte Informale / Haute Pâte / Tachism Symbolism / Decadence / Fin de siècle Out-of-print / Rare

James Ensor
Wildest Dreams, Beyond Impressionism

2025, English
Hardcover, 272 pages, 28 x 23 cm
Published by Prestel / Munich

$99.00 - In stock -

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English edition of this wonderful tribute to one of the fathers of international modernism, James Ensor.

James Ensor’s visionary spirit takes us on a journey through his manifold universe of still lifes, self-portraits, savage visions, carnival and satire. In the course of his career, Ensor grew into an unruly gamechanger who personally reset the rules of art. As he did so, he resolutely distanced himself from the classical European ideal of beauty and from the Impressionism that had initially fascinated him.

Ensor did not limit himself to painting – he also unleashed his passion for experiment in detailed drawings, huge collages and potent etchings. His love for the fanciful resulted in characteristically grotesque representations of countless wild dreams.

The pulse of a thrilling late nineteenth century beats through the more than two hundred works reproduced in this book. Ensor constantly surprises us with his contrasts between the comical and the macabre, the refined and the wanton, atmospheric bourgeois interiors and morbid skeletons.

Drawing on their wide-ranging expertise, fifteen authors each highlight specific facets of the Ostend artist’s developing practice to paint a fresh and comprehensive picture of Ensor’s life and work.

This publication accompanies the exhibition In Your Wildest Dreams – Ensor Beyond Impressionism from 28 September 2024 until 19 January 2025 at the Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp (KMSKA).

File under: James Ensor Herwig Todts Prestel / Munich Symbolism / Decadence / Fin de siècle Art Painting Drawing

James Ensor and Still Life in Belgium: 1830-1930, Rose, Rose, Rose a mes yeux
by Sabine Taevernier and Bart Verschaffel

2024, English
Softcover, 192 pages, 27 x 22 cm
Published by Yale University Press / New Haven

$120.00 - Out of stock

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A unique journey with James Ensor through the history of still life in Belgium in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries

Still life played an important role within the work of Belgian expressionist and symbolist painter James Ensor (1860–1949). The quality and significance of his intriguingly complex still lifes become clear when placed within the broader development of the genre in Belgium between 1830 and 1930.

The book offers an overview of the nineteenth-century Belgian academic tradition of decorative painting, with intriguing work by lesser-known painters such as Jean Robie, Hubert Bellis, Frans Mortelmans, and Henri De Braekeleer, as well as forgotten female artists such as Berthe Art and Alice Ronner. In the early twentieth century, artists such as Louis Thevenet continued to develop the genre of still life in a traditional manner, while innovators such as the late James Ensor, Léon Spilliaert, Marthe Donas, Walter Vaes, and Gustave Van de Woestyne created highly personal interpretations.

This book is published on the first exhibition ever entirely devoted to James Ensor's still lifes at Mu.ZEE (Ostend).

File under: Jean Robie Hubert Bellis Frans Mortelmans Henri De Braekeleer Berthe Art Alice Ronner Louis Thevenet James Ensor Léon Spilliaert Marthe Donas Walter Vaes Gustave Van de Woestyne Sabine Taevernier Bart Verschaffel Yale University Press / New Haven Painting Drawing Group Shows / Collections Curatorial Theory / Essay Art Symbolism / Decadence / Fin de siècle

Mutsumi Yamamoto
L'Eros Sacré

2010, Japanese
Softcover, 48 pages, 29.6 x 22 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Bunkamura Gallery / Tokyo

$150.00 - In stock -

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Rare copy of the large format catalogue published in conjunction with the exhibition of renowned Japanese copperplate engraver and painter Mutsumi Yamamoto (1940–2001) held at the Bunkamura Gallery, Tokyo in 2009. The catalogue includes Yamamoto's copperplate engravings created for books from the late 1960s through the early 1970s, including his prized work for Georges Bataille, as well as pencil drawings and oil paintings from the mid-1970s onward. Interspersed throughout the lush plates of Yamamoto's highly refined, dark, gothic-fantasy, and erotic-symbolist prints and paintings (whose admirers included Leonor Fini) are essays by rare book specialist Noriko Hayashi, former Hanga Geijutsu (Print Art) editor Kai Henmi, and Naosato Miyagawa. Designed in landscape format by Katsuhisa Toda.

Very Good copy, light wear to boards.

File under: Mutsumi Yamamoto Noriko Hayashi Kai Henmi Naosato Miyagawa Bunkamura Gallery / Tokyo Eros Drawing Illustration / Graphic Art / Bandes Dessinées Art Symbolism / Decadence / Fin de siècle Surrealism Out-of-print / Rare Art Brut / Folk / Visionary / Fantastic Painting

Erotica Universalis: From Pompeii to Picasso
Edited by Gilles Néret

2011, English
Softcover, 575 pages, 19.5 x 14 cm
Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Taschen / Cologne

$55.00 - In stock -

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Wonderfully indecent pictures from famous scribblers and anonymous talents alike (TASCHEN's 25th anniversary special edition)

From the dawn of time, ever since Adam and Eve, all artists of every age – whether the Egyptian, Greek and Roman artists of Antiquity, or more recent famous names as Rembrandt, Courbet, Degas or Picasso – have succumbed to their fantasies, obsessions and libido, and produced erotic works that the censors have taken good care to keep from the public. For Erotica, we surface from the subterranean realms of the museums to enter those of our national and private libraries. Here we discover that not only most of our famous writers, such as Ovid, Aretino, Voltaire, Verlaine or Maupassant, wrote erotic texts that bordered on indecency, but also that great artists like Boucher, Fragonard, Dali or Matisse were inspired to provide suitable illustrations for these naughty books.

Very Good copy.

File under: Agostino Carracci Antoine Borel Marcantonio Raimondi Félicien Rops Aubrey Beardsley Hans Bellmer Pablo Picasso Rembrandt Edgar Degas George Grosz Robert Crumb Albrecht Dürer Michelangelo Buonarroti Parmigianino Rembrandt van Rijn François Boucher Jean-Honoré Fragonard Bernard Picart Gustave Courbet Auguste Rodin Henri Matisse Salvador Dalí Gustav Klimt Egon Schiele Balthus Jean Dubuffet Tom of Finland Gilles Néret Taschen / Cologne Eros LGBTQ+ Out-of-print / Rare Art Drawing Painting Illustration / Graphic Art / Bandes Dessinées Renaissance / Neoclassicism / Romanticism Symbolism / Decadence / Fin de siècle Fetishism / BDSM Ancient / Medieval / Gothic

Odilon Redon
Otherworldly Visions

2026, English
Softcover, 112 pages, 25.5 x 20.4 cm
Published by Getty Publications / Los Angeles

$58.00 - In stock -

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This visually striking book provides an introduction to the mysterious and dreamlike work of the artist Odilon Redon.

Enigmatic and haunting, the work of the French Symbolist Odilon Redon (1840–1916) intrigues and entrances all who encounter it. During the first half of his career, Redon created dramatically monochromatic charcoal drawings and lithographs, dreamily dark images that plumbed the depths of his wild imagination. Eventually, however, he also turned to pastels, adopting a bold colorful palette in fantastical explorations of the natural world.

Featuring more than seventy illustrations, this publication offers an overview of Redon's career. The informative, accessible essays examine his disparate influences from the worlds of religion, mythology, literature, and music, and demonstrate why Redon’s mysterious work is an important precursor to Surrealism.

This volume is published to accompany an exhibition on view at the J. Paul Getty Museum at the Getty Center from July 14 to October 18, 2026.

Text by Danielle Canter, with contributions by Natalia Lauricella
Danielle Canter is assistant curator, Drawings, J. Paul Getty Museum.

File under: Odilon Redon Danielle Canter Natalia Lauricella Getty Publications / Los Angeles Symbolism / Decadence / Fin de siècle Art Painting Drawing