{"product_id":"9781907222573","title":"Of Kings and Things: Strange Tales and Decadent Poems by Count Eric Stanislaus Stenbock","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eAn introduction to the Decadent writer Stanislaus Eric Stenbock for the general reader, offering morbid stories, suicidal poems, and an autobiographical essay.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eDescribed by W. B. Yeats as a \"scholar, connoisseur, drunkard, poet, pervert, most charming of men,\" Count Stanislaus Eric Stenbock (1860—1895) is surely the greatestexemplar of the Decadent movement of the late nineteenthcentury.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA friend of Aubrey Beardsley, patron of the extraordinary pre-Raphaelite artist Simeon Solomon, and contemporary of Oscar Wilde, Stenbock died at the age of thirty-six as a result of his addiction to opium and his alcoholism, having published just three slim volumes of suicidal poetry and one collection of morbid short stories.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eStenbock was a homosexual convert to Roman Catholicism and owner of a serpent, a toad, and adachshundcalled Trixie. It was said that toward the end of his life he was accompanied everywhere by a life-size wooden doll that he believed to be his son. His poems and stories are replete with queer, supernatural, mystical, and Satanic themes; original editions of his books are highly sought by collectors of \u003ci\u003erecherché\u003c\/i\u003e literature.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eOf Kings and Things\u003c\/i\u003eis the first introduction to Stenbock's writing for the general reader, offering fifteen stories, eight poems and one autobiographical essay by this complex figure.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Strange Attractor Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47053131350256,"sku":"9781907222573","price":17.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9781907222573_p0.jpg?v=1763618286","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9781907222573","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}