Prudish pornographer, gender-bending anti-feminist, anarchist reactionary, “Queen of the Decadents” yet nemesis to the Surrealists, Rachilde was a fin-de-siècle French author who embodied antithetical extremes, and whose life of notoriety spanning nearly a century ended in a death in near obscurity in 1953. Known primarily for novels such as
Monsieur Vénus(1884),
Madame Adonis(1888), and
La Marquise de Sade(1887), whose titles announce the gender switching and sexual theatrics central to her
œuvre, she was also a playwright, essayist, biographer, journalist and
salonnière, a force behind the influential literary journal
Le Mercure de France, which she helped found in 1891 alongside her husband Alfred Valette and other significant Symbolist writers and critics. Responsible for…
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Citation: Hyman, Erin Williams. "Rachilde". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 05 March 2007 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=11777, accessed 31 October 2024.]
