Philippe-Auguste Villiers de L'Isle-Adam

Madeleine Chalmers (University of Oxford)
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“Boxing instructor, cured madman, pretender to the Greek throne and suitor to a rich heiress”: it was thus that the veteran publisher Gustave de Malherbe described Villiers de l’Isle-Adam on the fortieth anniversary of his death (Goujon, 1987, 162). By his full name Jean-Marie-Mathias-Philippe-Auguste, comte de Villiers de l’Isle-Adam, he was the descendant of a family of Breton aristocrats from Saint-Brieuc who had fallen on hard times, and a man who “preferred the immaculate conception of his dreams to the stomach-turning satiety of tangible life” (Bloy, 1905, 306). Hailed by W. B. Yeats as an archetypal Symbolist, he penned dramas, novels, short stories, poetry, and journalistic pieces. From the earnest romanticism of the

Premières poésies

[Early Poems] (1859) and his…

3075 words

Citation: Chalmers, Madeleine. "Philippe-Auguste Villiers de L'Isle-Adam". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 05 August 2020 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=4546, accessed 28 March 2024.]

4546 Philippe-Auguste Villiers de L'Isle-Adam 1 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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