About the book: 2017 / Before the reader is the first re-release of one of the main novels of French decadence, “Astarte” (1901) by Jean Lorrain. This is a fantasy novel about a neurasthenic aristocrat, fascinated by precious stones and who devoted his life to the search for the “blue and green” gaze of the goddess Astarte, a novel-diary filled with perverted sensuality, painful and narcotic visions. Lorrain (1855–1906) - poet, writer, self-proclaimed dandy, libertine, brawler, ethereal fanatic and chronicler of Paris of the "Belle Epoque" - was perhaps the most odious French decadent. According to the science fiction writer, translator and researcher of decadence B. Stableford, “no one else embodied all the absurdity and pomposity, all the paradoxes and perversions of the decadent style and way of life in such a direct and fatal way.” Lorrain's works were not published in Russian for many years, and this collection is the first significant publication since pre-revolutionary times.