The King in the Golden Mask and Other Stories

Translated by Iain White
Cover illustration by Santiago Caruso

‘The peculiar genius of Monsieur Schwob lies in a species of tremendously complex simplicity; that is to say that, by the arrangement and the harmony of an infinity of telling and precise details, his stories present the sensation of a unique detail.’
Rémy de Gourmont,
Le deuxième Livre des Masques

Revered in the French-speaking world, Marcel Schwob (1867-1905) deserves to be much better known among English-speaking aficionados of Decadent fiction. This new collection of fifty-one stories, including eight newly-translated pieces, aims to address that discrepancy. It brings back into print Iain White’s poetic translations of Schwob’s better-known tales, such as the title story ‘The King in the Golden Mask’, and adds newly-translated gems such as the astonishingly beautiful and haunting ‘The Wooden Star’.

Schwob was a one-off, but he was greatly influenced by English and American writers. He discovered Edgar Allan Poe whilst still a child, and he translated Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Dynamiter into French. He crammed a great variety of literary endeavour into his all-too-short life, and was much admired by contemporaries such as Paul Valéry and Guillaume Apollinaire.

The King in the Golden Mask contains:

• Translator’s introduction
• Acknowledgements
• From Cœur double: 'The Strigae', 'The Sabot', 'Train 081', 'Arachné', 'The Veiled Man', 'Beatrice', 'Lilith', 'A Skeleton', 'The Fat Man', 'The Dom', 'The Amber-trader', 'Mérigot Marchès', 'The "Papier Rouge" ', 'The Firebrands'.
• From Le Roi au masque d’or: 'The King in the Golden Mask', 'The Death of Odjigh', 'The Embalming-women', 'The Plague', 'The Milesian Virgins', 'The Sabbat at Mofflaines', 'Blanche the Bloody', 'The Flute', 'The Sleeping City'.
• From Vies imaginaires: 'Introduction', 'Empedocles, Reputed God', 'Herostratos, Incendiary', 'Crates, Cynic', 'Septima, Enchantress', 'Lucretius, Poet', 'Clodia, Shameless Matron', 'Petronius, Novelist', 'Sufrah, Geomancer', 'Frate Dolcino, Heretic', 'Cecco Angiolieri, Malevolent Poet', 'Paolo Uccello, Painter', 'Nicholas Oyseleur, Judge', 'Katherine la Dentellière, Whore', 'Alain le Gentil, Soldier', 'Gabriel Spenser, Actor', 'Cyril Tourneur, Tragic Poet', 'Major Stede Bonnet, Pirate by Vagary', 'Burke and Hare, Murderers'. La croisade des enfants: 'The Goliard’s Narrative', 'The Leper’s Narrative', 'The Narrative of Pope Innocent III', 'Narrative of Three Little Children', 'Narrative of François Longuejoue, Clerk', 'The Kalandar’s Narrative', 'Little Allys’ Narrative', 'The Narrative of Pope Gregory IX'.
• 'The Wooden Star'

The King in the Golden Mask is a sewn hardback book, printed lithographically, with head and tailbands and a silk ribbon marker, of 250 + xx pages

Limited