Fairy Tales for the Disillusioned: Enchanted Stories from the French Decadent Tradition

Editors Schultz (French studies, Brown Univ.; Sapphic Fathers) and Seifert (French studies, Brown Univ.; Manning the Margins) present an anthology of French Decadent fairy tales published between 1870 and 1914. During a period of French history marked by social and political turbulence and advances in technology and industry, Decadent writers were cynical of the social, cultural, and political changes many people marked as progress. This collection includes tales by authors such as Rachilde, Charles Baudelaire, Willy, Catulle Mendès, and others who wrote fairy tales that illustrate the anxiety, anger, and nostalgia these writers felt toward topics including industrialization, changing gender roles, nontraditional sexualities, and more. Many of the stories rework classic fairy tales (e.g., Charles Perrault's Stories or Tales of Yesteryear) to address contemporary issues through the lens of the Decadent movement.