"And me, what have I done? I had the age of their illusions and their desires made me young. Beautiful in their amour, I smiled at their dream and my smile protected them against death by smiling at them. Today, the number of years forgotten in my presence and the weight of their regret is overwhelming me, their awakening has aged me by a thousand years, and now I am condemned to live for a thousand years, hideous and sad, the life that each of them might have lived down here."-Jean Lorrain, "Oriane Vanquished"
Gathered together in the present volume, edited and translated from the French by Brian Stableford, are seventeen tales of
femmes fatales
, many of which have never appeared in English before. From the pioneering "The Amorous Revenant" by Théophile Gautier, to Jules Lermina's horrific "The Titaness," this significant sampling of those seductively attractive females who lead men into problematic positions will be sure to appeal to connoisseurs of dark fairy tales,
fin-de-siècle
decadence, and those who simply revel in the frissons offered by this irresistible antiquarian subgenre.