Remy de Gourmont

Remy de Gourmont (1858-1915) came from an aristocratic Normandy family which had fallen on hard times. He abandoned his law studies and obtained a badly paid job at the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris in1884 which he lost in 1891 for writing an article Le Joujou-Patriotisme for the magazine Mercure de France and became a full-time writer. He wrote a copious amount of non-fiction as well as novels and short stories. He is considered as one of the finest critics associated with the Symbolist movement. The stories collected together under the title The Angels of Perversity come from his collection Histoires Magiques and are case studies in sexual attraction. In 1891 he developed a painfully disfiguring skin disease which helped turn him into a recluse. His work is also featured in The Dedalus Book of Decadence.

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