Édouard Dujardin

Hauntings, by douard Dujardin (1861-1949), was originally published in French in 1886 and is here presented in its first-ever English translation by Brian Stableford. It appeared one year before the work on which the author's fame is largely based, Les Lauriers sont coup s, which was the first stream-of-consciousness novel ever written, and which was certainly hugely influential on later writers, such as James Joyce. Demonstrating the manner in which Dujardin developed that technique by stages, while using monologues and biographical commentaries as a means of analyzing and illustrating the psychological phenomenon of obsession, Hauntings is a minor masterpiece of symbolist fiction, specifically of the subgenre that consists of "manic monologues," few examples of which can compare with its curiosity, intensity and frank perversity.

Dujardin d crit ainsi son roman « C'est le r cit de six heures de la vie d'un jeune homme qui est amoureux d'une demoiselle - six heures, pendant lesquelles rien, aucune aventure n'arrive ...

A delightful period piece of Paris in the late 1880's, We'll to the Woods No More (Les lauriers sont coup s) retains its importance as the first use of the monologue int rieur and the inspiration for the stream-of-consciousness technique perfected by James Joyce. Dujardin's charming tale, told with insight and irony, recounts what goes on in the mind of a young man-about-town in love with a Parisian actress. Mallarm described the poetry of the telling as "the instant seized by the throat." Originally published in France in 1887, the first English translation (by Joyce scholar Stuart Gilbert) was published by New Directions in 1938. In 1957 Leon Edel's perceptive historical essay reintroduced the book as "the rare and beautiful case of a minor work which launched a major movement."