Presenting a fascinating collection of the most beloved works by French poet and writer Pierre Louÿs. He was most famous for following lesbian and classical themes in his writings. Louÿs is celebrated as a writer who aimed to "express pagan sensuality with stylistic perfection." Contents include: Woman and Puppet The New Pleasure Byblis Lêda Immortal Love The Artist Triumphant The Hill of Horsel

Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.

This is a new release of the original 1930 edition.

Excerpt from Woman and Puppet, Etc IN Spain the Carnival does not finish, as in France, at eight o'clock on the morning of Ash Wednesday. Over the wonderful gaiety of Seville the memory that dust we are, etc., spreads its odour of sepulture for four days only, and the first Sunday of Lent all the Carnival reawakens. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

During the carnival in Seville, the Frenchman Andr� St�venol meets and falls under the spell of Conception 'Concita' Perez, a young Andalusian woman. His friend, don Mateo Diaz warns him off by describing his own history with the woman - a history of being repeatedly attracted and then rebuffed by her. Conchita continually flirted with other men to torture don Mateo. On each occasion he was made to feel guilty for his jealous thoughts and actions towards her, until he realised finally that he had been her puppet for fourteen months and in an explosion of passion he beat her. She then astonished him by declaring the violence a sign of the strength of his love and came to his bed. She was a virgin. Although the two then started living together, she continued her flirtatious behaviour towards other men and simultaneously became very possessive. Don Mateo left the country and travelled for a year to escape her.This is a fantastic novel which exposes and analyzes the contradictions in romantic feelings and the self-defeating psychology and twisted logic of love. Its setting is perfect for its theme: Carnival, Seville, Spain, 1896. Its characters, aristocratic libertines who live for their dalliances. When Don Mateo learns that his friend Andre Stevenol has arranged to meet Concepcion 'Conchita' Perez he tells him the story of his impassioned, disastrous, erotic, and obsessive pursuit of her which unfolded over months as she alternately promised herself to him then frustratingly withheld her affections, over and over again, insisting on his framing his requests just so, then abruptly and coldly turning her back to him. It is a short novel but one which expounds the internal conflicts and inconsistencies of the human heart in a way that only the richest most well-crafted artistic works can. In Conchita Pierre Louys has created a sexily inscrutable seductress who may just be an honest woman. Her willfulness and cupidity makes her so much more desirable than anyone Don Mateo has ever met before. And he is the aging, lecherous, bon vivant whose romantic philosophy crashes up against the will of a woman whose mystery and allure is more powerful than anything else he has ever encountered. There's a beautiful little grace note of an epilogue which is perfectly in keeping with the fable-like narration of this story. It adds yet another delicious irony onto this bonbon of a psycho-sexual continental soap opera about the decadent and their desires.