* Finalist for the Headmistress Press Charlotte Mew Prize Renée Vivien (née Pauline Mary Tarn, 1877-1909) was an English expatriate who made her home in Paris during the Belle Époque. In 1903, Vivien’s collection of translations and adaptations from the Ancient Greek poetry of Sappho became one of the first works of modern European lesbian literature to be published by a lesbian writer under her real name. This courageous act was the death-sentence of her literary career. Parisian critics who had praised the mysterious “R. Vivien” as a young man of poetic genius began to snub at first and then simply ignore the newly un-closeted woman poet. Even in the face of ridicule and disrespect, Vivien continued to write and publish poetry, short stories, translations, plays, epigrams, and a novel based on her real-life romances with Natalie Clifford Barney and the Baroness Hélène van Zuylen van Nyevelt van Haar (née Rothschild). Vivien’s poetry is now available in English translation by Samantha Pious: A Crown of Violets (Headmistress Press, 2015). I think it's very rare to encounter a new lesbian poet through translation and I am very excited to support this collection in its positive obsession and literary innovation alike. If it is that we are encouraged to each become the lover of Renée Vivien through her work, then this translator has succeeded in making the poet's wishes as transparent as an invitation can be: "The nave has been adorned to welcome you aright." Meg Day, Judge of the Charlotte Mew Prize This is an invaluable collection that brings Renée Vivien to life for English-speaking readers. Émigrée and sexual adventurer, Vivien wrote poetry strewn with broken harps and beautiful corpses. Pious’s delicate but fearless translations draw out the bruised passions and troubadour rhythms that make Vivien essential reading for anyone interested in lesbian literature, fin-de-siècle poetics, or the agonies of sensual love. Kate Thomas, author of Postal Pleasures: Sex, Scandal and Victorian Letters

A Crown of Violets

Literature & Fiction

Vivien, Renée

Poetry

Headmistress Press

Woman Appeared to Me

Essays & Correspondence

Naiad Press,U.S.

The Muse of the Violets: Poems (English and French Edition)

Naiad Pr

Une femme M'apparut-- (French Edition)

World Literature

Legare Street Press

Sapho (French Edition)

Romance

Independently published

La Dame à la louve (French Edition)

Short Stories & Anthologies

CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform

Je ne sais pourquoi j’entrepris de faire la cour à cette femme. Elle n’était ni belle, ni jolie, ni même agréable. Et moi, (je le dis sans fatuité, mesdames,) on a bien voulu quelquefois ne pas me trouver indifférent. Ce n’est pas que je sois extraordinairement doué par la Nature au physique ni au moral : mais enfin, tel que je suis, — l’avouerai-je ? — j’ai été très gâté par le sexe. Oh ! rassurez-vous, je ne vais pas vous infliger un vaniteux récit de mes conquêtes. Je suis un modeste. Au surplus, il ne s’agit point de moi en l’occurrence. Il s’agit de cette femme, ou plutôt de cette jeune fille, enfin de cette Anglaise dont le curieux visage m’a plu pendant une heure...

Although Renée Vivien led a life of wealth and privilege in belle epoque Paris, she often felt like an outsider because she was attracted to other women. Financially secure, she wrote books to suit her own taste rather than that of the literary market. La dame à la louve, from 1904, shows her at the height of her powers.\nThese fierce, surprising stories challenge moral hypocrisy and normative views about gender, beginning with the title work, which offers a coded representation of same-sex love in the seemingly inexplicable commitment between a woman and her canine companion. The following stories feature a reimagined fairy tale in which Prince Charming turns out to be a young woman, a western adventure whose narrator goes mad with thirst, and other unconventional narratives that range across time and space.

La dame à la louve: An MLA Text Edition (MLA Texts and Translations)

Literary

Modern Language Association (MLA)

Appearing here together for the first time in English, in an exquisite translation by Brian Stableford, are the two markedly different novels issued by Renée Vivien under the title of A Woman Appeared to Me.
First published in 1904 and 1905, these masterpieces of symbolist fiction recount Vivien’s obsessive, torturing love affairs, most especially with the American writer Natalie Clifford Barney. Originally received with hostility due to their fervent championship of lesbianism, these highly sophisticated specimens of poetic prose, which offer an unusual combination of delicacy and fervor, economy and flamboyance, today can be seen as groundbreaking, and quite unparalleled, confessions of the pain and despair of intense amour.

A Woman Appeared to Me

Snuggly Books

A woman rides crocodiles like horses. A queen gives up her throne for her dignity. And Prince Charming is not who you might think . . .&nbsp; The Woman of the Wolf and Other Stories, written in 1904, is perhaps the finest work by sapphic poet Renée Vivien. Blending myth, fairy story and biblical tale, Vivien creates powerful portraits of strong women who stand up for what they believe in - and of the aggrieved men who trail behind them.&nbsp; Bold, defiant and suffused with a unique poetic voice, this scintillating collection of short stories offers a radical alternative to traditional lore.

Woman of the Wolf and Other Stories (Editions Gallic)

Gallic Books

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