List of Illustrations
Prologue, by Cyrille Zola-Place
Foreword to the French Edition, by Alain Pagès
Foreword to the American Edition, by Vernon A. Rosario
Introduction: The Ménage-à-Trois of Zola, Saint-Paul, and the
Italian “Invert,” by Michael Rosenfeld with Nancy Erber
Part I: The Confessions of a Homosexual to Émile Zola
Preface by Émile Zola
The Novel of an Invert
The Sequel to the Novel of an Invert
Other Particularities
The Italian Man’s Family Tree, by Michael Rosenfeld
Part II: Selected Works by Dr. Georges Saint-Paul
Dr. Georges Saint-Paul, Man of Science, by Clive Thomson
First Edition (1896)
In Memoriam: Émile Zola
Second Edition (1910)
Third Edition (1930)
Acknowledgments
Bibliography
List of Contributors
Index
Michael Rosenfeld holds two doctorates, one in French literature
and civilization from the Université Sorbonne Nouvelle–Paris 3 and
one in French language and literature from the Catholic University
of Louvain in Belgium.
William A. Peniston is the librarian and archivist emeritus at the
Newark Museum of Art, as well as a historian of France. His books
include Pederasts and Others: Urban Culture and Sexual Identity in
Nineteenth-Century Paris (2004).
Nancy Erber is professor emerita of modern languages and literature
at the City University of New York. With Peniston, she edited and
translated Queer Lives: Men’s Autobiographies from
Nineteenth-Century France (2007).
A brilliant archival discovery, a triumph of careful scholarship,
an unsuspected episode in modern literature, a moving testimony
about sex and love, and a fascinating, previously censored chapter
in the history of sexuality. Rosenfeld masterfully restores the
context in which conscious writing about homosexuality emerged in
Europe during the last decades of the nineteenth century.
*David Halperin, W. H. Auden Distinguished University Professor,
University of Michigan*
The contributors to this brilliantly edited and translated text
make the queer past come alive. Readers will not only recognize a
young man’s struggle with his gender and sexual identities, but
also the difficulty he had in telling his own story in a homophobic
society.
*Andrew Israel Ross, author of Public City/Public Sex:
Homosexuality, Prostitution, and Urban Culture in
Nineteenth-Century Paris*
Whether you persist in reading it as a proto-naturalist novel
(despite the opinions of the editors of this volume) or treat it as
a sociological document, The Italian Invert is a classic text of
nineteenth-century sexology the interest of which is by no means
limited to French (or Italian) studies. Richly enhanced here with
critical notes, this volume makes a revised and expanded version of
the primary documents available in English and also adds important
essays that situate and enlarge their scope. The text reflects the
latest archival discoveries, which include manuscripts and
illustrations, as well as new information about the mysterious "Dr.
Laupts." Whether one is interested in the history of
(homo)sexuality or in literary questions (such as the "queerness"
of Zola), this is an indispensable tool that belongs on every
researcher's shelf.
*Melanie Hawthorne, Texas A&M University*
The 'Italian invert’s confessions' have long been known to
historians of sexuality, yet this new edition lends them an
authenticity never before enjoyed....The editors have included
everything scholars might want to know: abundant annotations,
prefaces, commentaries on each recension, and a full index.
*European Legacy*
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