This is a collection of the earliest writings of the French decadent J-K. Huysmans (1848-1907). These twenty "bagatelles" include splenetic prose-poems, evocations of the forgotten byways of Paris, sketches of a night-time city peopled by the "naiads of the gutter", tableaus from Flemish painting, and illuminated symbolist reveries. What unites this miscellany is the allure of decay, the charm of distaste and disappointment, and, above all, Huysmans' unparalleled style - studded as it is with the baroque and barbarous, the arcane and archaic. An illustrated and annotated translation. Published in a limited edition, bound in textured, uncoated paper.