Monsieur Vénus: Roman Matérialiste

"Monsieur Vénus created a scandal when it was first published in 1884, and it made its author, Rachilde, one of the leading figures of the French decadent movement. The novel may still outrage some readers, but it has become a key text for students of fin de siècle literature, women writers, and gender studies. Here at last is an edition that restores the passages censored after the first edition, along with a new translation, both in a format suitable for classroom use." - English Showalter

When the rich and well-connected Raoule de Vénérande becomes enamored of Jacques Silvert, a poor young man who makes artificial flowers for a living, she turns him into her mistress and eventually into her wife. Raoule's suitor, a cigar-smoking former hussar officer, baron de Raittolbe, though angry and confused, becomes an accomplice in the complications that ensue.

A writer and cultural arbitrer of a salon in France from the early 1880s until 1930, Rahcilde (Marguerite Eymery) won celebrity with her novel Monsier Vénus. An inverson of the Pygmalion story, the book was judged to be pornographic, and a Belgian court sentenced its author (in absentia) to two years in prison. Verlaine congratulated Rachilde on the invention of a new vice. The novel challenges the sex/gender system in a way that even today has a punch.