Against Nature

Joris-Karl Huysmans's cult classic of deviance and decadence that inspired Oscar Wilde's Picture of Dorian Gray, now in a new translation by Theo Cuffe A celebration of deviance, vanity, sensual abandon, and the aesthetics of artifice, Against Nature brings us the nineteenth-century rebel Jean des Esseintes-disaffected, degenerate, and art-obsessed. The last of a proud and noble family, des Esseintes retreats from the world in disgust at bourgeois society and leads a life based on cultivation of the senses through art. He distills perfumes from the rarest oils and essences, creates a garden of poisonous flowers, sets gemstones in a tortoise's gold-painted shell, and plans to corrupt a street urchin, until he is, degraded enough to commit murder. Des Esseintes's groundbreaking aesthetic pilgrimage in Against Nature has served as the guidebook to decadence for more than a century, inspiring writers from Oscar Wilde to Michel Houellebecq. A pioneer, whose early work took inspiration from Baudelaire and Zola, Joris-Karl Huysmans was, a founder of the nineteenth-century decadent movement. Against Nature has, influenced countless writers and artists, and enjoys a cult following to this day. This new translation by Theo Cuffe, with a foreword by Luc Sante, captures the magnificence of Huysmans's famous style-filled with wit and irony, expressiveness and precision, erudition and sensuality.