The Deliquescences of Adoré Floupette

A collection of Decadent poems, with an extended Life of the Poet, which was published originally in 1885, only for it to become apparent in short order that it was in fact a literary hoax and the confection of the two minor poets Henri Beauclair and Gabriel Vicaire. The book soon garnered a reputation for the quality of its parody, for successfully hoodwinking some critics and for entertaining those in on the joke, and is today recognised both as one of the earliest exemplars of the genre of hoax writings, and as a key contemporary work for all those interested in the French literature of the 1890s.

Poems and Life have been put into a fine translation by Stanley Chapman, while an Afterword by Paul Edwards discusses the work’s context, significance, and pun-hidden references.