Editing Joris-Karl Huysmans

{{Short description|French novelist and art critic (1848–1907)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=January 2024}}
{{Infobox writer
| name             = Joris–Karl Huysmans
| image            = Huysmans photographié par André Taponier.jpg
| caption          = Huysmans, {{circa|1895}}
| birth_name       = Charles-Marie-Georges Huysmans
| birth_date       = {{birth date|1848|02|05|df=yes}}
| birth_place      = Paris, [[July Monarchy]]
| death_date       = {{death date and age|1907|05|12|1848|02|05|df=y}}
| death_place      = Paris, [[Third French Republic]]
| occupation       = Novelist
| movement         = {{hlist|[[Naturalism (literature)|Naturalist]]|[[Decadent movement|Decadent]]}}
| notableworks     = {{plainlist|
*''[[À rebours]]'' (1884)
*''[[Là-bas (novel)|Là-bas]]'' (1891)
*''[[En route (novel)|En route]]'' (1895)
*''[[The Cathedral (Huysmans novel)|La cathédrale]]'' (1898)}}
| signature        = Joris-Karl Huysmans Signature.jpg
}}

'''Charles-Marie-Georges Huysmans''' ({{IPAc-en|US|w|iː|s|ˈ|m|ɑ̃|s}},<ref>{{Cite Merriam-Webster|Huysmans|access-date=13 August 2019}}</ref> {{IPA|fr|ʃaʁl maʁi ʒɔʁʒ ɥismɑ̃s|lang}}; 5 February 1848 – 12 May 1907) was a French novelist and art critic who published his works as '''Joris-Karl Huysmans''' ({{IPA|fr|ʒɔʁis kaʁl -|lang}}, variably abbreviated as '''J.&nbsp;K.''' or '''J.-K.'''). He is most famous for the novel {{lang|fr|[[À rebours]]}} (1884, published in English as ''Against the Grain'' and as ''Against Nature''). He supported himself by way of a 30-year career in the French civil service.

Huysmans's work is considered remarkable for its idiosyncratic use of the French language, large vocabulary, descriptions, satirical wit and far-ranging erudition. First considered part of [[Naturalism (literature)|Naturalism]], he became associated with the [[Decadent movement]] with his publication of ''À rebours''. His work expressed his deep [[pessimism]],<ref>Eugene Thacker, "An Expiatory Pessimism," Transactions of the Flesh: An Homage to Joris-Karl Huysmans (edited by D.P. Watt & Peter Holman, Ex Occidente Press, 2014).</ref> which had led him to the philosophy of [[Arthur Schopenhauer]].<ref>Twenty&ndash;three year&ndash;old [[Arthur Schopenhauer|Schopenhauer]], who had a great influence on Huysmans, told [[Christoph Martin Wieland|Wieland]], "Life is an unpleasant business. I have resolved to spend it reflecting on it. (''Das Leben ist eine mißliche Sache. Ich habe mir vorgesetzt, es damit hinzubringen, über dasselbe nachzudenken.'')" ([[Rüdiger Safranski]], ''[[Schopenhauer and the Wild Years of Philosophy]]'', Chapter 7).</ref> In later years, his novels reflected his study of [[Catholicism]], [[religious conversion]], and becoming an [[oblate]]. He discussed the [[iconography]] of [[Christian architecture]] at length in ''[[The Cathedral (Huysmans novel)|La cathédrale]]'' (1898), set at [[Chartres]] and with [[Chartres Cathedral|its cathedral]] as the focus of the book.

Huysmans' novel ''[[Là-bas (novel)|Là-bas]]'' (1891) concerns the novelist Durtal, who researches [[Satanism]] and the 15th-century child-murderer [[Gilles de Rais]]. It was followed by the Durtal trilogy,<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20161011102045/https://www.exfontibus.com/collections/literature/products/huysmans-durtal Huysmans - The Durtal Trilogy (En Route, The Cathedral, The Oblate)]</ref> comprising ''[[En route (novel)|En route]]'' (1895), ''[[The Cathedral (Huysmans novel)|La cathédrale]]'' (1898), and ''[[The Oblate|L'Oblat]]'' (1903), in which Durtal takes a [[spiritual journey]] and eventually converts to Catholicism; in ''[[The Oblate|L'Oblat]]'', he becomes an oblate in a monastery, as Huysmans himself was in the Benedictine Abbey at [[Ligugé]], near [[Poitiers]], in 1901.<ref>Keeler, Sister Jerome (1950). "J.–K. Huysmans, Benedictine Oblate," ''American Benedictine Review'', Vol. I, pp. 60–66.</ref><ref>''The Cathedral'', Introduction, Dedalus 1997</ref> ''La cathédrale'' was his most commercially successful work. Its profits enabled Huysmans to retire from his civil service job and live on his royalties.
{{French literature sidebar}}

==Biography==

===Early life===
Huysmans was born in Paris, France, in 1848. "His young mother, Élisabeth-Malvina Badin Huysmans, had been a schoolteacher before she married, and his father, Victor-Godfried-Jan Huysmans [Dutch: Huijsmans], was a Dutch immigrant who worked in Paris as a commercial artist."<ref>Antosh, Ruth (2024). ''J.-K. Huysmans''. London: Reaktion Books, p. 8.</ref><ref>[https://www.openarchieven.nl/brd:62af531a-59bd-17e4-91e4-87df888836a1 Information in the Dutch Archives of the birth on 8 July 1815 in Breda of Victor Godefridus Johannes.]</ref> Huysmans's father (1815-1856) died when Huysmans was eight years old. [[Constant Cornelis Huijsmans]], the Dutch painter and art teacher (including of [[Vincent van Gogh]]), was his uncle.<ref>[https://www.geheugenvantilburg.nl/page/12250/constant-huijsmans Constant Huijsmans]</ref><ref>[https://www.dbnl.org/tekst/niss004zach01_01/niss004zach01_01_0002.php "Uncle and nephew", in ''A gentle touch of his soul's life. On 'true' and 'false' mysticism around 1900'' (2008), Peter J. A. Nissen, p. 9.]</ref> Huysmans mother quickly remarried, and Huysmans resented his stepfather, Jules Og, a Protestant who, with Huysmans's mother, purchased a bookbindery on the ground floor of the building where they lived.<ref>Antosh, Ruth (2024). ''J.-K. Huysmans'', p. 10.</ref> 

During his childhood, Huysmans turned away from the Roman Catholic Church. He was unhappy at school but completed his coursework and earned a {{lang|fr|[[baccalauréat]]}}.
[[File:Joris-Karl Huysmans.jpg|thumb|Portray of Huysmans by Louis Félix Beschere (1886)]]

===Civil service career===
For 32 years, Huysmans worked as a civil servant for the French Ministry of the Interior, a job he found tedious. The young Huysmans was called up to fight in the [[Franco-Prussian War]], but was invalided out with [[dysentery]]. He used this experience in an early story, "''Sac au dos''" (Backpack) (later included in his collection, ''[[Les Soirées de Médan]]'').

After his retirement from the Ministry in 1898, made possible by the commercial success of his novel, ''La cathédrale'', Huysmans planned to leave Paris and move to [[Ligugé]]. He intended to set up a community of Catholic artists, including [[Charles-Marie Dulac]] (1862-1898). He had praised the young painter in ''[[The Cathedral (Huysmans novel)|La cathédrale]]''. Dulac died a few months before Huysmans completed his arrangements for the move to Ligugé, and he decided to stay in Paris.

In 1905 Huysmans was diagnosed with cancer of the mouth. He died in 1907 and was interred in the [[Montparnasse Cemetery|cimetière du Montparnasse]], Paris.[[Image:JkHuysmans.grave.jpg|thumb|right|Huysmans's grave]]

[[Image:JK Huysmans.jpg|thumb|right|A portrait of Huysmans, by [[Jean-Louis Forain]], {{circa|1878}} ([[Musée d'Orsay]])]]

===Writing career===
He used the name Joris-Karl Huysmans when he published his writing, as a way of honoring his father's ancestry. His first major publication was a collection of prose poems, ''Le drageoir aux épices'' (1874), which were strongly influenced by [[Baudelaire]]. They attracted little attention but revealed flashes of the author's distinctive style.

Huysmans followed it with the novel, ''[[Marthe (novel)|Marthe, Histoire d'une fille]]'' (1876). The story of a young prostitute, it was closer to [[Naturalism (literature)|Naturalism]] and brought him to the attention of [[Émile Zola]]. His next works were similar: sombre, realistic and filled with detailed evocations of Paris, a city Huysmans knew intimately. ''[[Les Sœurs Vatard]]'' (1879), dedicated to Zola, deals with the lives of women in a bookbindery. ''[[En ménage]]'' (1881) is an account of a writer's failed marriage. The climax of his early work is the novella ''[[À vau-l'eau]]'' (1882) (translated as ''With the Flow'', ''Downstream'', and ''Drifting''), the story of a downtrodden clerk, Monsieur Folantin, and his quest for a decent meal.

[[Image:Huysmans hommes aujourdhui.jpg|thumb|left|A caricature showing Huysmans as a somewhat eccentric sort of literary [[dandy]], by [[Coll-Toc]], 1885]]

Huysmans's 1884 novel {{lang|fr|[[À rebours]]}} (''Against the Grain'' or ''Against Nature'' or ''Wrong Way'') became his most famous, or notorious. It featured the character of an [[Aesthetics|aesthete]], des Esseintes, and decisively broke from Naturalism. It was seen as an example of "[[decadent movement|decadent]]" literature. The description of des Esseintes's "[[homosexuality|alluring liaison]]" with a "cherry-lipped youth" was believed to have influenced other writers of the decadent movement, including [[Oscar Wilde]].<ref name="glbtq">{{cite web |url=http://www.glbtq.com/literature/huysmans_jk.html |title=Huysmans, Joris-Karl (1848–1907) |year=2002 |last=McClanahan |first=Clarence |access-date=2007-08-11}}</ref>

Huysmans began to drift away from the Naturalists and found new friends among the [[Symbolism (movement)|Symbolist]] and Catholic writers whose work he had praised in ''À rebours.'' They included [[Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly]], [[Villiers de L'Isle Adam]], and [[Léon Bloy]]. [[Stéphane Mallarmé]] was so pleased with the publicity his verse had received from the novel that he dedicated one of his most famous poems, "Prose pour des Esseintes", to its hero. Barbey d'Aurevilly told Huysmans that after writing ''À rebours,'' he would have to choose between "the muzzle of a pistol and the foot of the Cross."<ref name="Barbey">Aurevilly, Jules Barbey d' (1884). ''Le Constitutionnel'', "Á rebours", 28 July 1884.</ref> Huysmans, who had received a secular education and abandoned his Catholic religion in childhood, returned to the Catholic Church eight years later.<ref name="Baldick">Baldick, Robert (1959). Introduction to ''Against Nature'', his translation of Huysmans's ''Á rebours''. Harmondsworth: Penguin, p. 12.</ref>

Huysmans's next book after ''Á rebours'' was the novella ''Un dilemme'', which tells "the story of a poor working-class woman who gives birth out of wedlock. When her bourgeois lover, the father of the baby, dies, his heartless family members refuse to help, leaving the mother and her child destitute."<ref>Antosh, Ruth (2024). ''J.-K. Huysmans'', p. 50.</ref> Huysmans's next novel, ''[[En rade]]'', an unromantic account of a summer spent in the country, did not sell as well as its predecessor. "The novel's originality lies in its abrupt juxtaposition of real life and dreams."<ref>Antosh, Ruth (2024). ''J.-K. Huysmans'', p. 56.</ref>

His ''[[Là-bas (novel)|Là-bas]]'' (1891) attracted considerable attention for its portrayal of [[Satanism]] in France in the late 1880s.<ref>Rudwin, Maxmilian J. (1920). [http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=njp.32101064304957;view=1up;seq=262 "The Satanism of Huysmans,"] ''The Open Court,'' Vol. XXXIV, pp. 240–251.</ref><ref>Thurstan, Frederic (1928). "Huysmans' Excursion into Occultism," ''Occult Review'', Vol. XLVIII, pp. 227–236.</ref> He introduced the character Durtal, a thinly disguised self-portrait, who is writing a biography of the notorious 15th-century child-murderer and torturer [[Gilles de Rais]].<ref>Antosh, Ruth (2024). ''J.-K. Huysmans'', pp. 65-66.</ref> The later Durtal novels, ''[[En route (novel)|En route]]'' (1895), ''[[The Cathedral (Huysmans novel)|La cathédrale]]'' (1898) and ''[[L'oblat]]'' (1903), explore Durtal/Huysmans's conversion to [[Roman Catholic Church|Roman Catholicism]].<ref>Hanighan, F. C. (1931). "Huysmans Conversion," ''The Open Court,'' Vol. XLV, pp. 474–481.</ref> ''En route'' depicts Durtal's spiritual struggle during his stay at a [[Trappists|Trappist]] monastery. In ''[[The Cathedral (Huysmans novel)|La cathédrale]]'' (1898), the protagonist is at [[Chartres]], intensely studying the cathedral and its symbolism. The commercial success of this book enabled Huysmans to retire from the civil service and live on his royalties.  In ''L'Oblat'', Durtal becomes a [[Benedictine]] [[oblate (religion)|oblate]]. He finally learns to accept the world's suffering.

Huysmans was a founding member of the [[Académie Goncourt]].

Huysmans's work was known for his idiosyncratic use of the [[French language]], extensive vocabulary, detailed and sensuous descriptions, and biting, satirical wit. It also displays an encyclopaedic erudition, ranging from the catalogue of decadent [[Latin]] authors in ''À rebours'' to the discussion of the iconography of Christian architecture in ''[[The Cathedral (Huysmans novel)|La cathédrale]]''. Huysmans expresses a disgust with modern life and a deep pessimism. This had led him first to the philosophy of [[Arthur Schopenhauer]]. Later he returned to the Catholic Church, as he described in his Durtal novels.

===Art criticism===
In addition to his novels, Huysmans was known for his art criticism, collected in his books ''L'Art Moderne'' (1883)<ref>In [https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v42/n07/julian-barnes/robespierre-s-chamber-pot "Robespierre's Chamber Pot"], [[Julian Barnes]] writes that the 2019 translation by Huysmans biographer Robert Baldick that he reviews (titled ''Modern Art'') is the first translation of ''L'Art Moderne'' into English. ''London Review of Books'', 2 April 2020. Barnes adds that ''L'Art Moderne'' comprises Huysmans's reviews of "the Salons of 1879-82 and the Independent Exhibitions of 1880-1882".</ref> and ''Certains'' (1889).<ref>''Certains'' was translated into English for the first time in 2021, as ''Certain Artists''. It [https://huysmans.org/dedalus/certains.htm includes extended analyses of works by Edgar Degas, Odilon Redon, Gustave Moreau, and Félicien Rops.]</ref> "[H]e was a perceptive and talented art critic who was among the first to recognize the genius of [[Edgar Degas|Degas]] and the Impressionists."<ref>Antosh, Ruth (2024). ''J.-K. Huysmans'', p. 7.</ref> But after Huysmans sent a copy of ''L'Art Moderne'' to [[Camille Pissarro]], Pissarro wrote to him, "How is it that you don't say one word about [[Paul Cézanne|Cézanne]], whom not one of us has failed to acknowledge as one of the most singular temperaments of our time, and one who has had a very great influence on modern art? I was extremely surprised by your articles on [[Claude Monet|Monet]]. How can such astonishing vision, such phenomenal execution and such rare and extensive decorative feeling not have struck you back in 1870 ...?"<ref>[[Anka Muhlstein|Muhlstein, Anka]], ''Camille Pissarro: The Audacity of Impressionism''. New York: [[Other Press]], 2023, p. 125.</ref>

==Style and influence==
{{Cleanup section|reason="Section is mainly a list of quotations with no unifying formatting, making the sources unclear for some of the material.|date=December 2018}}
[[Image:Plaque Joris-Karl Huysmans, 31 rue Saint-Placide, Paris 6.jpg|thumb|right|200px|Commemorative plaque in 31 rue Saint-Placide, [[6th arrondissement of Paris|Paris, 6e]]]]
[[Image:J.-K. Huysmans by Vallotton.jpg|thumb|right|200px|A caricature of Huysmans, by [[Félix Vallotton]], {{circa|1898}}]]

"It takes me two years to 'document' myself for a novel&nbsp;– two years of hard work. That is the trouble with the naturalistic novel&nbsp;– it requires so much documentary care. I never make, like Zola, a plan for a book. I know how it will begin and how it will end&nbsp;– that's all. When I finally get to writing it, it goes along rather fast&nbsp;– ''assez vite.''"<ref>Henry, Stuart (1897). [https://archive.org/stream/hourswithfamousp00henriala#page/n5/mode/2up ''Hours with Famous Parisians.''] Chicago: Way & Williams, p. 114.</ref>

"Barbaric in its profusion, violent in its emphasis, wearying in its splendor, it is&nbsp;— especially in regard to things seen&nbsp;– extraordinarily expressive, with all the shades of a painter's palette. Elaborately and deliberately perverse, it is in its very perversity that Huysmans's work — so fascinating, so repellent, so instinctively artificial — comes to represent, as the work of no other writer can be said to do, the main tendencies, the chief results, of the Decadent movement in literature." ([[Arthur Symons]], ''The Decadent Movement in Literature'')

"Continually dragging Mother Image by the hair or the feet down the worm-eaten staircase of terrified Syntax." ([[Léon Bloy]], quoted in Robert Baldick, ''The Life of J.-K. Huysmans''). Critical reviews by Léon Bloy of ''À rebours'', ''En rade'', and ''Là-bas'' published contemporaneously, in various journals or reviews, as Huysmans's novels came out over the years, in 1884, 1887, 1891, can be found, collected and published six years after Huysmans's death, in book form, in ''On Huysmans' Tomb.''<ref>Bloy, Léon (1913). ''Sur la tombe de Huysmans'', Paris: Collection des Curiosités Littéraires.</ref>

"It is difficult to find a writer whose vocabulary is so extensive, so constantly surprising, so sharp and yet so exquisitely gamey in flavour, so constantly lucky in its chance finds and in its very inventiveness." ([[Julien Gracq]])

"In short, he kicks the oedipal to the curb" (M. Quaine, ''Heirs and Graces'', 1932, Jowett / Arcana)

Huysmans's novel, ''Against the Grain'', has more discussions of sound, smell, and taste than perhaps any other work of literature. For example, one chapter consists entirely of smell hallucinations so vivid that they exhaust the book's central character, Des Esseintes, a bizarre, depraved aristocrat. A student of the perfumer's art, Esseintes has developed several devices for titillating his jaded senses. Besides special instruments for re-creating any conceivable odour, he has constructed a special "mouth organ" designed to stimulate his palate rather than his ears. The organ's regular pipes have been replaced by rows of little barrels, each containing a different liqueur. In Esseintes's mind, the taste of each liqueur corresponded to the sound of a particular instrument:

{{quote|"Dry [[Curaçao (liqueur)|curaçao]], for example, was like the [[clarinet]], with its penetrating and velvety note: [[Kümmel (liqueur)|kümmel]] matched the [[oboe]] with its sonorous nasal resonance; [[crème de menthe|menthe]] and [[anisette]] were like the [[flute]], at once honeyed and peppery, whimpering but muted; whereas [[kirsch]], to complete the orchestra, is a wild [[trumpet]] blast; [[gin]] and [[whisky]] assault the palate with the strident blare of their [[cornets]] and [[trombones]]; marc-[[brandy]] raises the roof with its deafening hubbub of [[tuba]]s."<ref>Huysmans, Joris-Karl. ''Against Nature'', trans. Theo Cuffe, foreword by [[Lucy Sante]]. U.K.: Riverrun (2019). New York: Picador (2022), p. 63. {{ISBN|9781250787668}}</ref>}}

By careful and persistent experimentation, Esseintes learned to "execute on his tongue a succession of voiceless melodies; noiseless funeral marches, solemn and stately; could hear in his mouth solos of crème de menthe, duets of [[Vespetrò|vespertro]] and [[rum]]."<ref>Sekuler, Robert, and Blake, Randolph (1985). ''Perception''. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, pp. 404–405.</ref>

The protagonist of ''[[Submission (novel)|Submission]]'' (2015), a novel by [[Michel Houellebecq]], is a literary scholar specializing in Huysmans and his work; Huysmans's relation to Catholicism serves as a foil for the book's treatment of Islam in France.

==Personal life==
Huysmans never married or had children. He had a long-term, on-and-off relationship with Anna Meunier, a seamstress.<ref>Satanism, Magic and Mysticism in Fin-de-siècle France, Robert Ziegler, Palgrave Macmillan, 2012, pp. 2, 7, 125</ref><ref>''The Mirror of Divinity: The World and Creation in J.-K. Huysmans'', Robert Ziegler, University of Delaware Press, 2004, p. 159</ref><ref>{{cite magazine |last1=Gollner |first1=Adam |date=12 November 2015 |title=What Houellebecq Learned from Huysmans |url=http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/what-houellebecq-learned-from-huysmans |magazine=The New Yorker |access-date=18 November 2015}}</ref>

Huysmans was made a ''Chevalier de la [[Légion d'honneur]]'' in 1892 for his work with the civil service. In 1905, his admirers persuaded the French government to promote him to ''Officier de la Légion d'honneur'' for his literary achievements.

==Works==
[[File:Cover of Trois églises 1905 Huysmans.jpg|thumb|Cover of ''Trois Primitifs'' (1905)]]
* ''Le drageoir aux épices'' (1874)
* ''[[Marthe (novel)|Marthe]], Histoire d'une fille'' (1876)
* ''[[Les Soeurs Vatard]]'' (1879)
* ''Sac au dos'' (1880)
* ''Croquis Parisiens'' (1880, 2nd ed. 1886). Translated in 2004 as ''Parisian Sketches''.
* ''[[En ménage]]'' (1881)
* [https://archive.org/details/pierrotsceptique00hennuoft ''Pierrot sceptique''] (1881, written in collaboration with Léon Hennique)
* ''[[À vau-l'eau]]'' (1882)
* ''L'art moderne'' (1883)
* {{lang|fr|[[À rebours]]}} (1884)
* ''Un Dilemme'' (1887)
* ''[[En rade]]'' (1887)
* ''Certains'' (1889)
* ''La bièvre'' (1890)
* ''[[Là-bas (novel)|Là-bas]]'' (1891)
* ''[[En route (novel)|En route]]'' (1895)
* ''[[The Cathedral (Huysmans novel)|La cathédrale]]'' (1898)
* ''La Bièvre et Saint-Séverin'' (1898)
* ''La magie en Poitou. [[Gilles de Rais]].'' (1899)
* ''La Bièvre; Les Gobelins; Saint-Séverin'' (1901)
* ''Sainte Lydwine de Schiedam'' (1901, France) (on Saint [[Lydwine de Schiedam]]) ([[Nihil Obstat]] and [[Imprimatur]])
** ''Saint Lydwine of Schiedam'', translated from the French by Agnes Hastings (London, 1923, [[Kegan Paul]])
* ''De Tout'' (1902)<ref>{{cite journal|title=Review of ''De Tout'' by J. K. Huysmans|journal=The Athenæum|date=16 August 1902|issue= 3903|pages=215|url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=iau.31858029268129;view=1up;seq=229}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |work=Black & White |date=26 July 1902 |url=http://www.huysmans.org/profiles/vivian.htm |author-link=Herbert Vivian |first=Herbert |last=Vivian |title=The Genius of the Monastery: M. Huysmans at home}}</ref>
* ''Esquisse biographique sur Don Bosco'' (1902)
* ''[[L'Oblat]]'' (1903)
* ''Trois Primitifs'' (1905)
* ''Le Quartier Notre-Dame'' (1905)
* ''Les foules de Lourdes'' (1906)
* ''Trois Églises et trois Primitifs'' (1908)

'''Current editions''':
* [http://www.fabula.org/actualites/article14994.php ''Écrits sur l’art (1867-1905)''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081114055030/http://www.fabula.org/actualites/article14994.php |date=2008-11-14 }}, edited and introduced by Patrice Locmant, Paris, Éditions Bartillat, 2006.
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20081111181720/http://www.editions-bartillat.fr/fiche-livre.asp?Clef=37 ''À Paris''], edited and introduced by Patrice Locmant, Paris, Éditions Bartillat, 2005.
* [http://www.fabula.org/actualites/article12007.php ''Les Églises de Paris''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061206143613/http://www.fabula.org/actualites/article12007.php |date=2006-12-06 }}, edited and introduced by Patrice Locmant, Paris, Éditions de Paris, 2005.
* [http://www.fabula.org/actualites/article6607.php ''Le Drageoir aux épices''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061205054422/http://www.fabula.org/actualites/article6607.php |date=2006-12-05 }}, edited and introduced by Patrice Locmant, Paris, Honoré Champion, 2003.
* ''The Durtal Trilogy'', edited by Joseph Saint-George with notes by Smithbridge Sharpe, [https://books.google.com/books?id=QhUMvgAACAAJ&dq=the+durtal+trilogy&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjc0OXCosmJAxXkMlkFHYwrNJIQ6AF6BAgHEAI Google Books] [https://web.archive.org/web/20161011102045/https://www.exfontibus.com/collections/literature/products/huysmans-durtal Ex Fontibus Company, 2016]

==See also==
* [[Léon Bloy]]
* [[Joseph-Antoine Boullan]]
* [[Stanislas de Guaita]]
* [[Henri Antoine Jules-Bois]]
* [[Joséphin Péladan]]
* [[Our Lady of La Salette]]
* [[Oscar Wilde]]

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==Further reading==
{{Refbegin|30em}}
* Addleshaw, S. (1931). "The French Novel and the Catholic Church," ''Church Quarterly Review'', Vol. 112, pp.&nbsp;65–87.
* Antosh, Ruth B. (1986). ''Reality and Illusion in the Novels of J.-K. Huysmans''. Amsterdam: Rodopi.
* Antosh, Ruth (2024). ''J.-K. Huysmans''. London, UK: Reaktion Books. [https://www.the-tls.co.uk/lives/biography/j-k-huysmans-ruth-antosh-book-review-huw-nesbitt ''TLS'' review]
* [[Robert Baldick|Baldick, Robert]] (1955). ''The Life of J.-K. Huysmans''. Oxford: Clarendon Press (new edition revised by Brendan King, Dedalus Books, 2006). Eric Ormsby (September 2006) writes that the book is "able to hold its own with [[George D. Painter|Painter]]'s [[Marcel Proust|Proust]] or [[Richard Ellman|Ellman]]'s [[James Joyce|Joyce]]".
* Banks, Brian R. (1990). ''The Image of Huysmans.'' New York: AMS Press.
* Banks, Brian R. (2017). ''J.-K. Huysmans and the Belle Époque: A Guided Tour of Paris''. Paris, Deja Vu, introduction by [[Colin Wilson]]. 
* [[Julian Barnes|Barnes, Julian]] (2 April 2020). [https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v42/n07/julian-barnes/robespierre-s-chamber-pot "Robespierre's Chamber Pot]," a review of ''Modern Art'', by J.K. Huysmans, translated by Brendan King. ''London Review of Books''.
* [[Léon Bloy|Bloy, Léon]] (1913). ''Sur la tombe de Huysmans''. Paris: Collection of Literary Curiosities. (''On Huysmans' Tomb: Critical reviews of J.-K. Huysmans and À Rebours, En Rade, and Là-Bas.'' Portland, OR: Sunny Lou Publishing, 2021. Includes Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly's review of ''À rebours'' from ''Le Constitutionnel,'' 28 July 1884, in appendix.)  
* Blunt, Hugh F. (1921). [https://archive.org/stream/greatpenitents00blun#page/168/mode/2up "J.K. Huysmans."] In: ''Great Penitents.'' New York: The Macmillan Company, pp.&nbsp;169–193.
* Brandreth, H. R. T. (1963). ''Huysmans''. London: Bowes & Bowes.
* Brophy, Liam (1956). "J.–K. Huysmans, Aesthete Turned Ascetic," ''Irish Ecclesiastical Review,'' Vol. LXXXVI, pp.&nbsp;43–51.
* Cevasco, George A. (1961). ''J.K. Huysmans in England and America: A Bibliographical Study''. Charlottesville: The Bibliographical Society of the University of Virginia.
* Connolly, P. J. (1907). [https://archive.org/stream/dublinreview141londuoft#page/254/mode/2up "The Trilogy of Joris Karl Huysmans,"] ''The Dublin Review,'' Vol. CXLI, pp.&nbsp;255–271.
* Crawford, Virginia M. (1907). [http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=hvd.32044105216345;view=1up;seq=193 "Joris Karl Huysmans"], ''The Catholic World,'' Vol. LXXXVI, pp.&nbsp;177–188.
* Donato, Elisabeth M. (2001). ''Beyond the Paradox of the Nostalgic Modernist: Temporality in the Works of J.-K. Huysmans.'' New York: Peter Lang. 
* [[René Doumic|Doumic, René]] (1899). [https://archive.org/stream/contemporaryfre01frosgoog#page/n380/mode/2up "J.–K. Huysmans."] In: ''Contemporary French Novelists.'' New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, pp.&nbsp;351–402.
* [[Havelock Ellis|Ellis, Havelock]] (1915). [https://archive.org/stream/cu31924087972539#page/n179/mode/2up "Huysmans."] In: ''Affirmations.'' Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, pp.&nbsp;158–211.
* Garber, Frederick (1982). ''The Autonomy of the Self from Richardson to Huysmans.'' Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.
* [[Gilbert Highet|Highet, Gilbert]] (1957). [https://archive.org/stream/talentsgeniusesphigh#page/92/mode/2up "The Decadent."] In: ''Talents and Geniuses.'' New York: Oxford University Press, pp.&nbsp;92–99.
* [[James Huneker|Huneker, James]] (1909). [https://archive.org/stream/cu31924027150014#page/n185/mode/2up "The Pessimists' Progress: J.–K. Huysmans."] In: ''Egoists.'' New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, pp.&nbsp;167–207.
* Huneker, James (1917). [https://archive.org/stream/unicorns03hunegoog#page/n127/mode/2up "The Opinions of J.–K. Huysmans."] In: ''Unicorns.'' New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, pp.&nbsp;111–120.
* Kahn, Annette (1987). ''J.-K. Huysmans: Novelist Poet and Art Critic''. Ann Arbor, Mich.: UMI Research Press.
* [[James Laver|Laver, James]] (1954). ''The First Decadent: Being the Strange Life of J.K. Huysmans''. London: Faber & Faber.
* Lavrin, Janko (1929). "Huysmans and Strindberg." In: ''Studies in European Literature.'' London: Constable & Co., pp.&nbsp;118–130.
* Locmant, Patrice (2007). ''J.-K. Huysmans, le forçat de la vie''. Paris: Bartillat (Goncourt Prize for Biography).
* Lloyd, Christopher (1990). ''J.-K. Huysmans and the fin-de-siecle Novel.'' Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. 
* Mason, Redfern (1919). [http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015028067075;view=1up;seq=372 "Huysmans and the Boulevard,"] ''The Catholic World,'' Vol. CIX, pp.&nbsp;360–367.
* [[Gabriel Mourey|Mourey, Gabriel]] (1897). "Joris Karl Huysmans," ''The Fortnightly Review,'' Vol. LXVII, pp.&nbsp;409–423.
* Olivero, F. (1929). "J.–K. Huysmans as a Poet," ''The Poetry Review,'' Vol. XX, pp.&nbsp;237–246.
* [[Eric Ormsby|Ormsby, Eric]] (September 2006). [https://newcriterion.com/article/delousing-the-soul/ "Delousing the Soul"], ''The New Criterion''.
* Peck, Harry T. (1898). [https://archive.org/stream/personalequation00peckrich#page/n145/mode/2up "The Evolution of a Mystic."] In: ''The Personal Equation.'' New York and London: Harper & Brothers, pp.&nbsp;135–153.
* Ridge, George Ross (1968). ''Joris Karl Huysmans.'' New York: Twayne Publishers.
* Shuster, George N. (1921). [http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=hvd.32044014509145;view=1up;seq=472 "Joris Karl Huysmans: Egoist and Mystic,"] ''The Catholic World,'' Vol. CXIII, pp.&nbsp;452–464.
* [[Arthur Symons|Symons, Arthur]] (1892). "J.–K. Huysmans," ''The Fortnightly Review,'' Vol. LVII, pp.&nbsp;402–414.
* Symons, Arthur (1916). [https://archive.org/stream/figuresofseveral00symoiala#page/268/mode/2up "Joris–Karl Huysmans."] In: ''Figures of Several Centuries.'' London: Constable and Company, pp.&nbsp;268–299.
* [[Eugene Thacker|Thacker, Eugene]] (2014). "An Expiatory Pessimism." In: ''Transactions of the Flesh: An Homage to Joris-Karl Huysmans'' Bucharest: Ex Occidente Press, pp.&nbsp;132–143.
* Thorold, Algar (1909). [https://archive.org/stream/sixmastersindisi00thoriala#page/80/mode/2up "Joris–Karl Huysmans."] In: ''Six Masters of Disillusion.'' New York: E.P. Dutton & Company, pp.&nbsp;80–96.
* Ziegler, Robert (2004). ''The Mirror of Divinity: The World and Creation in J.-K. Huysmans.'' Newark: University of Delaware Press.
{{Refend}}

==External links==
{{Commons category}}
{{Wikisource|Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Joris Karl Huysmans}}
{{Wikisource author}}
* [http://www.huysmans.org/ Joris Karl Huysmans], website includes almost all of Huysmans's published work and contemporary material about him.
* {{StandardEbooks|Standard Ebooks URL=https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/j-k-huysmans}}
* {{Internet Archive author |sname=Joris-Karl Huysmans}}
* {{Books and Writers |id=huysm |name=Joris-Karl Huysmans}}
* {{Gutenberg author |id=4324| name=Joris-Karl Huysmans}}
* {{Librivox author |id=5304}}
* [http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07591a.htm Joris-Karl Huysmans], ''Catholic Encyclopedia''
* [https://www.huysmans.org/en/biblioge/bibliog4e.htm Critical works in English]
{{Joris-Karl Huysmans}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Huysmans, Joris-Karl}}
[[Category:1848 births]]
[[Category:1907 deaths]]
[[Category:Burials at Montparnasse Cemetery]]
[[Category:Officers of the Legion of Honour]]
[[Category:Converts to Roman Catholicism from atheism or agnosticism]]
[[Category:Deaths from oral cancer]]
[[Category:Decadent literature]]
[[Category:French art critics]]
[[Category:19th-century French novelists]]
[[Category:20th-century French novelists]]
[[Category:French people of Dutch descent]]
[[Category:French Roman Catholic writers]]
[[Category:Our Lady of La Salette]]
[[Category:Writers from Paris]]
[[Category:Benedictine oblates]]
[[Category:French male novelists]]