This image is the cover for the book One of Cleopatra's Nights and Other Fantastic Romances, Classics To Go

One of Cleopatra's Nights and Other Fantastic Romances, Classics To Go

Modern English readers may likely find "King Candaules" the most exciting of the stories in terms of the strength of its narrative, but much of Gautier's writing is so compelling because of his spectacular descriptions and elaborate style, which befits the extravagance of the subject matter, especially in "One of Cleopatra's Nights". The shorter stories in between are worth reading for reasons which are unique to each of them, but "Clarimonde" deserves special mention: it is of a genre that is well-known to modern readers, and has to be considered one of the greatest of its kind. (Goodreads)

Théophile Gautier

Pierre Jules Théophile Gautier; 30 August 1811 – 23 October 1872) was a French poet, dramatist, novelist, journalist, and art and literary critic. While an ardent defender of Romanticism, Gautier's work is difficult to classify and remains a point of reference for many subsequent literary traditions such as Parnassianism, Symbolism, Decadence and Modernism. He was widely esteemed by writers as disparate as Balzac, Baudelaire, the Goncourt brothers, Flaubert, Pound, Eliot, James, Proust and Wilde.

OTB ebook