Books published by Snuggly Books

The Bull-Man and the Grasshopper, first published in 1876 as Une histoire de l'autre monde, and here presented in English for the first time in a translation by Brian Stableford, tells the story of Jean Pioux and Marius Mazuclard, two bizarre street performers who are arrested for participating in the brief rule of the Paris Commune and sentenced as deportees to New Caledonia.An eccentric melodrama of adventure and romance, this early and fast-paced novella by the prolific Jean Richepin offers a stirring account of flamboyant grace under extreme pressure.

Long out of print and presented here for the first time in paperback, is Arthur Machen's classic collection of prose poems. The ten exquisite piees included in this volume are: The Rose Garden, The Turanians,The Idealist, Witchcraft, The Ceremony, Psychology, Torture, Midsummer, Nature, and The Holy Things.

Collecting together eighty-six different pieces of prose from sixty-one authors, Decadence and Sybmolism: A Showcase Anthology, is the most broad-ranging anthology of its kind. Surveying the movements from their beginnings onward, the volume brings together texts from well-known exponents such as Rimbaud and Baudelaire, as well as numerous lesser-known authors, many of whose work is being made available in English for the first time.Editor and translator Brian Stableford provides an in-depth introductory essay, as well as brief biographies of the various personalities presented.Complete list of authors included:Charles BaudelaireArthur RimbaudThéophile GautierXavier ForneretThéodore de BanvillePaul VerlaineX. B. SaintineAuguste de Villiers de l'Isle AdamErnest HelloCatulle MendèsJoris-Karl HuysmansCharles CrosFrédéric ChampsaurStéphane MallarméJean MoréasGustave KahnJules LaforgueCharles MoriceG. Albert AurierPaul AdamFrancis PoictevinRemy de GourmontAndré-Ferdinand HeroldAdolphe RettéBernard LazareJean LorrainPierre LouÿsCamille MauclairStuart MerrillÉphraïm MikhaëlHenri de RégnierJules RenardSaint-Pol-RouxGabriel de LautrecPierre QuilllardMarcel SchwobFrédéric BoutetPierre VeberTristan BernardJudith GautierHugues RebellGaston DanvilleMay Armand BlancRenée VivienAlfred JarryFrancis JammesJ. H. Rosny aînéHenri AustruyLéon BloyJean RichepinLouis CodetLéon DaudetClaude CébelJane de La VaudèreEdmond HaraucourtHenry DetoucheHélène de Zuylen de NyeveltJacques LamerGaston PawlowskiMaurice MagreHan Ryner

On nice days the witch Sandrine, a wife and mother of two (or is it three?) canoes along the Stream of Consciousness to the outskirts of town where her friend Vienna lives on the edge of a swamp. At Hartwood portals litter the paths, big as dinner plates, but only if you have an eye for that sort of thing. Sometimes Vienna, who does, outlines them in circles of wildflowers or pastel chalk, to alert the unwary who might otherwise be whisked away. Instead, Vienna tells her, Sandrine should explore the disused upstairs bedrooms, haunted not by the ghosts of former inhabitants but by alternate worlds, one behind each of many brightly painted doors.What kind of world is behind each door? How to pick? Behind Pomme Verte, the door she finally tries, Sandrine meets a tall young man with red hair, who may be a son she didn't know she had. Is it possible that in the other worlds one has children who are searching for their biological mothers-just as if they had been adopted by a human and not, as it were, by another world? Only one way to find out.

St. Madoc, on the coast of North Wales, seems like a suitably quiet place for an aging writer to work; when Simon Cannick moves into Raven Cottage he thinks it might even be too quiet. Stopping by the pub, he learns of local lore concerning mermaids, spirits and the Murden family who inhabit the nearby Abbey. Perhaps some of this might furnish Simon with material, but soon he finds he has little time to write. Before he can investigate the folklore it has already begun to investigate him, through the venerable and isolated Murdens, the bewitching Cerys and even a raven called Lenore. Truth, however, turns out to be stranger than folklore, and, as a storm approaches that has been brewing for generations, destiny intervenes to divert Simon's plans for a quiet life into deeper and vaster waters.Eccentric, erudite, adventurous, Spirits of the Vasty Deep by Brian Stableford, is an eclectic, bubbling cauldron full of cosmic vision, droll humour and off-beat science fiction. Intelligent fantasy for those who long ago strayed from the beaten path.

"For a moment, my heart stood still, and I gasped for breath. Before me, in place of the familiar structures, there was disclosed a panorama of unearthly, of astounding beauty. In deep dells, bowered by overhanging trees, there bloomed flowers such as only dreams can show; such deep purples that yet seemed to glow like precious stones with a hidden but ever-present radiance, roses whose hues outshone any that are to be seen in our gardens, tall lilies alive with light, and blossoms that were as beaten gold."Written in December, 1935, when Arthur Machen was his early 70s, N reveals itself as one of the finest of his pieces: a strange, mystical tale about a possible hidden paradise in the London suburb of Stoke Newington.

No other writer of the fin-de-siècle period undertook a more elaborate exploration of perversities and abnormalities than Jean Lorrain, and no one else went as far afield in the search for discoveries of that curious kind than he did. Perhaps, given the variety of human behavior, it was not possible for him actually to invent perversities that no one actually practiced, or were even tempted to practice, but what is certain is that no one ever examined the anatomy of eroticism, including its wilder extremes, with a greater analytical fervor.In this, the second collection of short stories by Jean Lorrain to be made available in English, exquisitely translated by Brian Stableford, psychological studies of amorous perversity are presented together with mock-folktales, giving further evidence of the amazing inventiveness and imagination of one of the key figures of the Decadent Movement.

A coastline razed and inundated by a hurricane. A traveler journeying towards the flood instead of away from it. A team of rescue workers ­without anyone to rescue, but who for various ­reasons can't leave the drowned city. It has been said that those who live by the sword shall die by the sword, but what about those whose job it is to save ­others? When the storehouse and everything in it has burned down, will we finally be able to see the moon?