Monsieur Venus

ALASTOR PRESS 

When the noblewoman Raoule de Vénérande meets the poor worker Jacques Silvert, she falls madly in love and decides that she wants him to be her mistress. He is installed in a sumptuous studio where she drugs, beats and loves her beautiful victim, who does everything to forget her male pride and is seduced by luxury. Can one accept such an existence? Can the outside world tolerate it? Her friend and former hussar officer Baron de Raittolbe certainly cannot. His handsome moustache trembles with jealousy and unrequited desire – but is Raoule really the one he desires? Fatal consequences await those who try to rewrite the rules and those who are too beautiful.

In this hyper-decadent and proto-queer novel from 1884, its author Rachilde – “Mademoiselle Baudelaire” – also challenges a modern reader’s notions of gender, class and art.

The edition also contains a foreword and comments by translator Hillevi Hellberg and an afterword by fin de siècle scholar Cecilia Carlander.

Title: Monsieur Venus
Original title: Vénus – roman materialiste
Author: Rachilde
Language: Swedish
Translator: Hillevi Norburg
Designer: Beatrice Bohman and Martina Andersson
Format: Half-cloth
Number of pages: 272
Published: July 2019

ISBN: 97891896334526

MORE INFORMATION

Alastor Press is a Swedish independent publisher with a focus on literature that moves in the dark, esoteric and artistically distinctive. The publisher is known for its careful editions of both classic and contemporary works in areas such as decadence, symbolism, horror and philosophical fiction. With an eye for the obscure and cult, Alastor Press highlights writing that challenges, seduces and lingers.