Sabbat

Sabbat by Hélène Picard (1873-1945) first published in 1923 is one of the most forthright contributions to the rich French tradition of literary Satanism. It was issued as part of a Collection Colette and is dedicated to Colette who also provided the preface the brief text of which implies strongly that the book was commissioned by her. Seeing Satan emerging from a poppy and accepting him as her poetic savior Picard sets forth in this series of interlocked prose-poems to unpack the notion of Satanism and specify its real implications with a surreal flamboyance that is typically decadent and which Baudelaire would surely have understood and approved of. Though exceedingly obscure Sabbat here presented for the first time in English in a fine translation by Brian Stableford is a very intriguing work of considerable importance as a late addition to the canon of Decadent literature which deserves to be much more widely read and appreciated.