Alfred de Musset

Musset's Contes, containing precious gems such as the Histoire d'un merle blanc or Mimi Pinson, are so many brilliant variations on the central themes of his work. The critical edition of the 1854 text is supplemented here by the correspondence between Hetzel and Musset, and by a selection of letters from Hetzel to George Sand.

"Jag skall sätta eld på dig, föra dig till höjdpunkten av sinnligt liv. Du kommer att sjunka tillbaka som död, men död av njutning och extas." Under den romantiska perioden skrevs inte mycket erotik. Det främsta undantaget är den franske romantikern Alfred de Mussets (1810-57) Gamiani från 1833, med dess unika blandning av gotisk skräckroman och erotik. Det sägs att de Musset var inspirerad av sin älskarinna Geroges Sand när han skrev boken.

"' What a picture! ' She shivered, making her breasts quiver, and I realized that this confession, far from horrifying her, was feeding her lust. You'll send the devil back into our flesh.' "Considered one of the truly great French writers of the nineteenth century, famed poet and novelist Alfred de Musset once decided (as great French writers are wont to do) to try his hand at erotic fiction. The glorious result was Gamiani, a classic tale of sensual pleasure and sexual excess. Reputedly inspired by the debauched history of Musset's former lover-the irrepressible George Sand-it is the classic erotic story of one man, two women . . . and two incomparable nights of uninhibited sexual adventure.

"Marianne, Fantasio, Don't Trifle With Love, The Candlestick, A Diversion, A Door Must be Open or Shut, You Can't Think of Everything The seven plays in this collection share a light-hearted tone, though with occasional and unexpected moments of seriousness. In Marianne, a confirmed cynic intercedes with a married woman on behalf of his best friend. In the eponymous hero of the modern 'fairy tale' Fantasio, by turns imaginative, abrupt and perceptive, Musset provides us with a compelling self-portrait. Don't Trifle with Love shows the dangerous strategems of two childhood sweethearts, supposedly destined for marriage. In The Candlestick, an infatuated clerk is set up as a decoy by his employer's young wife and her lover. The one-act plays A Diversion, A Door Must be Open or Shut and You Can't Think of Everything deal, in witty, epigrammatic style, with various aspects of romance: a wife and her friend test her husband's fidelity, or lack of it; a man wants to propose to his bantering, blase hostess; and a couple in love, one absent-minded, the other forgetful, tries to concentrate long enough to get married."