'' Imaginary Lives'' (original
French title: '' Vies imaginaires'') is a collection of twenty-two semi-biographical
short stories
A short story is a piece of prose fiction that typically can be read in one sitting and focuses on a self-contained incident or series of linked incidents, with the intent of evoking a single effect or mood. The short story is one of the oldest t ...
by
Marcel Schwob
Mayer André Marcel Schwob, known as Marcel Schwob (23 August 1867 – 26 February 1905), was a French symbolist writer best known for his short stories and his literary influence on authors such as Jorge Luis Borges, Alfonso Reyes, Roberto Bol ...
, first published in book form in 1896. Mixing known and fantastical elements, it was one of the first works in the genre of
biographical fiction. The book is an acknowledged influence in
Jorge Luis Borges
Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo (; ; 24 August 1899 – 14 June 1986) was an Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator, as well as a key figure in Spanish-language and international literature. His best-known b ...
's first book ''
A Universal History of Infamy'' (1935). Borges also translated the last story "Burke and Hare, Assassins" into Spanish.
Most chapters had been published individually in the newspaper ''Le Journal'' between 1894 and 1895. For the collected edition he substituted "Vie de Morphiel, démiurge" with "Matoaka", which had appeared in 1893 in ''L'Echo de Paris'' and that he renamed "Pocahontas, princesse".
[Schwob, Marcel. ''Chroniques''. Geneve: DROZ, 1981. p. 204] The story "Lilith" about painter and poet
Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Gabriel Charles Dante Rossetti (12 May 1828 – 9 April 1882), generally known as Dante Gabriel Rossetti (), was an English poet, illustrator, painter, translator and member of the Rossetti family. He founded the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhoo ...
was provably the first one that he wrote in the genre of biographical fiction. It had already been collected in 1891 in the book ''
Coeur double'', and perhaps that is the reason it was not included in ''Imaginary Lives''.
Originally translated into English in 1924 by Lorimer Hammond, ''Imaginary Lives'' was published in a new translation by Chris Clarke (Wakefield Press, 2018), a translation which was awarded the 2019 French-American Foundation Translation Prize for Fiction.
Contents
References
Sources
* Allain, Patrice. et al. ''Marcel Schwob: L’Homme au masque d’or''. Nantes: Gallimard, 2006. Catalog of a major exhibition on Schwob at the Municipal Library of Nantes.
* Borges, Jorge Luis. ''Miscelánea''. Barcelona: Random House Mondadori, 2011.
* González-Rivas Fernández, Ana, Francisco García Jurado, "Death and Love in Poe's and Schwob's Readings of the Classics". ''CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture'' 10.4. 2000, pp. 5–
link to essay* Goudemare, Sylvain. ''Marcel Schwob ou les vies imaginaires''. Paris: Le Cherche Midi, 2000.
*
Jefferson, Ann. ''Biography and the Question of Literature in France''. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. pp. 200–214
* Schwob, Marcel. ''Imaginary Lives'', tr. Lorimer Hammond. New York: Boni and Liveright, 1924.
* Schwob, Marcel. ''Imaginary Lives'', tr. Harry G. Hives. Wakefield, N.H: Longwood Academic, 1991.
* Schwob, Marcel. ''The King in the Golden Mask and other writings'', tr. Iain White. Manchester: Carcanet New Press Limited, 1982.
* Schwob, Marcel.''Oeuvres''. Paris; Les Belles Lettres, 2002.
* Villon, François. ''The Poems of François Villon Hanover'', University Press of New England, 1965
* Zieger, Robert. ''Asymptote: An Approach to Decadent Fiction''. New York: Edition Rodolpi B. V. 2009
{{DEFAULTSORT:Imaginary Lives
1896 short story collections
Fantasy short story collections
French short story collections
Cultural depictions of Pocahontas
Cultural depictions of Stede Bonnet
Cultural depictions of William Kidd
Cultural depictions of William Burke and Hare