Théophile Gautier 3 hr 52 min read

Fantastic romances of passion and the uncanny, including the tale of a night with Cleopatra that costs a slave his life, from a master of French Romantic prose.

Théophile Gautier's tales, here in Lafcadio Hearn's celebrated 1882 translation, are jewels of sensual, exotic, supernatural fantasy. Gorgeous, feverish, unforgettable. Read it for lush and haunting fantastic romances from a great French stylist, rendered by one of English prose's finest translators.

In its time

Published in 1882, during the 1880s, lost races and dying earths.

Reading it

3 hr 52 min read (a novel-length work, settle in).