Stories
by Catulle Mendès
We first came across a reference to this
author in Max Beerbohm's Enoch Soames,
where the title character's stories were described as "like a story by Catulle Mendès in which the
translator had either skipped or cut out every alternate sentence." Mendès was a French writer who lived 1841-1909, and wrote
prolifically, producing plays, poems, short stories and novels. The stories included
fairy tales and fables, wry parables about love, accounts of crime and the
uncanny. Very popular at the time, he is now mostly forgotten, and it turned
out to be difficult to find any of his work in English. We have managed to
track some down: here they are.