An original fin de siecle novel, Against Nature contains only one character. Des Esseintes is a decadent, ailing aristocrat who retreats to an isolated villa where he indulges his taste for luxury and excess. Veering between nervous excitability and debilitating ennui, he gluts his aesthetic appetites with classical literature and art, exotic jewels (with which he fatally encrusts the shell of his tortoise), rich perfumes and a kaleidoscope of sensual experiences.
This revised edition of Robert Baldick’s translation features a new introduction and a chronology, and reproduces Huysmans’s original 1903 preface as well as a selection of reviews from writers including Mallarme, Zola and Wilde.