fb pixcode

NOVELS AND SHORT STORIES BY AUTHOR

PUBLISHER
Wakefield Press

BOOK FORMAT
Paperback, 6 x 9 in. / 200 pgs / 1 bw.

PUBLISHING STATUS
Pub Date
Active

DISTRIBUTION
D.A.P. Exclusive
Catalog: SPRING 2015 p. 95   

PRODUCT DETAILS
ISBN 9781939663108 TRADE
List Price: $16.95 CDN $24.00 GBP £14.99

AVAILABILITY
Out of stock

TERRITORY
WORLD

THE SPRING 2024 ARTBOOK | D.A.P. CATALOG

Artbook | D.A.P. Catalog Cover Link
Preview our Spring 2024 catalog, featuring more than 500 new books on art, photography, design, architecture, film, music and visual culture.
  

WAKEFIELD PRESS

Disagreeable Tales

By Léon Bloy. Introduction and translation by Erik Butler.

Thirty tales from one of the best known but least translated of the French Decadent writers

Thirty tales of theft, onanism, incest, murder and a host of other forms of perversion and cruelty from the "ungrateful beggar" and "pilgrim of the absolute," Léon Bloy. Disagreeable Tales, first published in French in 1894, collects Bloy's narrative sermons from the depths: a cauldron of frightful anecdotes and inspired misanthropy that represents a high point of the French Decadent movement and the most emblematic entry into the library of the "Cruel Tale" christened by Villiers de l'Isle-Adam. Whether depicting parents and offspring being sacrificed for selfish gains, or imbeciles sacrificing their own individuality on a literary whim, these tales all draw sustenance from an underlying belief: the root of religion is crime against man, nature and God, and that in this hell on earth, even the worst among us has a soul.

A close friend to Joris-Karl Huysmans, and later admired by the likes of Kafka and Borges, Léon Bloy (1846–1917) is among the best known but least translated of the French Decadent writers. Nourishing antireligious sentiments in his youth, his outlook changed radically when he moved to Paris and came under the influence of Barbey d'Aurevilly, the unconventionally religious novelist best known for Les Diaboliques. He earned the dual nicknames of "The Pilgrim of the Absolute" through his unorthodox devotion to the Catholic Church, and "The Ungrateful Beggar" through his endless reliance on the charity of friends to support him and his family.
PRAISE AND REVIEWS

The Paris Review

Erik Morse

Perhaps his most explicit selection of harangues and exhortations, the newly reissued Disagreeable Tales (Histoires désobligeantes, 1894) represents a unique literary genre—inspired by Villiers de L’Isle-Adam’s Cruel Tales (1883), Barbey d’Aurevilly’s Les diaboliques (1874) and the short sketches of Poe and Lautréamont.

Geist

Alberto Manguel

Bloy is yet to be discovered broadly by English-speaking readers. I would recommend starting with his Disagreeable Tales, translated by Erik Butler and published in 2015 by Wakefield Press.

Disagreeable Tales

STATUS: Out of stock

Temporarily out of stock pending additional inventory.

FORTHCOMING AND NEW: FICTION AND POETRY

The Black Flame of Paradise (A Novel)

THE BLACK FLAME OF PARADISE (A NOVEL)

Mousse Publishing

ISBN: 9788867493395
USD $19.00
| CAN $29.95

Pub Date: 2/19/2019
Active | In stock


Blue in Green

BLUE IN GREEN

Blank Forms Editions

ISBN: 9781953691149
USD $15.00
| CAN $22

Pub Date: 9/24/2024
Forthcoming


Angharad Wiliams: Eraser

ANGHARAD WILIAMS: ERASER

After 8 Books

ISBN: 9782492650079
USD $16.00
| CAN $24

Pub Date: 4/9/2024
Active | In stock


Karel Jaromír Erben & Jan Jedlicka: We Three Brothers

KAREL JAROMíR ERBEN & JAN JEDLICKA: WE THREE BROTHERS

Steidl

ISBN: 9783969993019
USD $50.00
| CAN $73

Pub Date: 6/25/2024
Forthcoming


Groove, Bang and Jive Around

GROOVE, BANG AND JIVE AROUND

Blank Forms Editions

ISBN: 9781953691194
USD $15.00
| CAN $23

Pub Date: 6/25/2024
Forthcoming


Five Stories for Philip Guston

FIVE STORIES FOR PHILIP GUSTON

Printed Matter, Inc.

ISBN: 9780894391026
USD $30.00
| CAN $43 UK £ 27

Pub Date: 1/16/2024
Active | In stock


Fernando Maquieira: A Tiny Story

FERNANDO MAQUIEIRA: A TINY STORY

RM

ISBN: 9788419233721
USD $24.95
| CAN $35.95

Pub Date: 7/16/2024
Forthcoming


Trouble in the Swaths

TROUBLE IN THE SWATHS

Wakefield Press

ISBN: 9781939663962
USD $14.95
| CAN $21.95 UK £ 12.99

Pub Date: 6/11/2024
Forthcoming


New Inventions and the Latest Innovations

NEW INVENTIONS AND THE LATEST INNOVATIONS

Wakefield Press

ISBN: 9781939663986
USD $15.95
| CAN $23.95 UK £ 13.99

Pub Date: 7/2/2024
Forthcoming


Vulturnus

VULTURNUS

Wakefield Press

ISBN: 9781939663924
USD $14.95
| CAN $21.95 UK £ 12.99

Pub Date: 3/19/2024
Active | In stock


Treasure Island

TREASURE ISLAND

Four Corners Books

ISBN: 9781909829190
USD $37.00
| CAN $53

Pub Date: 7/18/2023
Active | In stock


Tractatus Logico-Suicidalis

TRACTATUS LOGICO-SUICIDALIS

Wakefield Press

ISBN: 9781939663887
USD $19.95
| CAN $26.95 UK £ 16.95

Pub Date: 11/22/2022
Active | In stock