From a Faraway Land

The 32 vignettes in this collection, all originally published between 1892 and 1894, are steeped in the delicious decadence of fin de siècle France and the symbolist movement. As Stableford notes in his introduction, most are formulated as brief character studies that culminate in a revealing anecdote. They range in approach from “Phocas,” in which an episode of reconciliation and brotherhood in fourth-century Rome concludes with a grisly gladiatorial spectacle, to the fairy tale “The City of Sphinxes,” in which a questor liberated from his insular society is dismayed to discover that the marvelous vistas beyond its boundaries are unattainable. Eleven stories grouped as “Women’s Faces,” one of the book’s three divisions, frequently evoke the Greek goddess Diana in their account of femmes fatales who are indifferent or averse to the romance of male suitors. Though most are slight in themselves, cumulatively these stories open a fascinating window on their time, its sexual politics, and its governing aesthetic. (July)