Mallarmé on Fashion: A Translation of the Fashion Magazine La Dernière Mode, with Commentary

by P. N. Furbank

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In 1874, Stephane Mallarme, the great French poet, undertook a highly idiosyncratic project--the publication of a fashion magazine called La Derniere Mode (The Latest Fashion)--that he almost single-handedly compiled. Using a variety of feminine and masculine pseudonyms to theorize about fashion and to advise on popular vacation destinations, home furnishings, and entertainment, Mallarme? created a spectacularly original work. The distinguishing feature of Mallarme's magazine is that it show more explores the nature of fashion from the inside. While it is a genuine fashion magazine, it also satirizes the entire genre. Various theories have been entertained about the work: it has been viewed as a prose poem, a hoax, and a cynical money-making venture. Furbank and Cain, however, argue that such guesses are hopelessly off the mark. Complete with the original artwork and a contextualizing introduction and commentary, this is the definitive translation of one of French literature's greatest enigmas. show less

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P. N. Furbank was born Philip Nicholas Furbank in Cranleigh, Surrey on May 23, 1920. He studied at Cambridge University. During World War II, he served in the British Army in Italy. He was a lifelong stammerer, and this challenge led him to leave Cambridge, where he had taught in the late 1940s and early 1950s, to work in London as a librarian and show more an editor. He was a critic and scholar who wrote several books including Italo Svevo: The Man and the Writer, E. M. Forster: A Life, and Diderot: A Critical Biography, which was the first recipient of the Truman Capote Award for Literary Criticism in 1995. He and fellow scholar W. R. Owens began their Daniel Defoe collaboration in the early 1980s, and over 20 years they published four books and were the general editors of a 44-volume collection of Defoe's works. He died on June 27, 2014 at the age of 94. (Bowker Author Biography) show less

Common Knowledge

People/Characters
Stéphane Mallarmé

Classifications

Genres
Nonfiction, Art & Design
DDC/MDS
391.009034Society, government, & cultureCustoms, etiquette & folkloreCostume and personal appearanceStandard subdivisionsHistory, geographic treatment, biography
LCC
PQ2344 .D4 .E5Language and LiteratureFrench, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese literaturesFrench literatureModern literature19th century
BISAC

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English
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Paper, Ebook
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5