Jean Lorrain Add a review

Jean Lorrain (9 August 1855 in Fécamp, Seine-Maritime – 30 June 1906), born Paul Alexandre Martin Duval, was a French poet and novelist of the Symbolist school.

Lorrain was a dedicated disciple of dandyism and spent much of his time amongst the fashionable artistic circles in France, particularly in the cafés and bars of Montmartre.

He contributed to the satirical weekly Le Courrier français, and wrote a number of collections of verse, including La forêt bleue (1883) and L'ombre ardente (1897). He is also remembered for his Decadent novels and short stories, such as Monsieur de Phocas (1901), Monsieur de Bougrelon (1897), and Histoires des masques (1900), as well as for one of his best stories, Sonyeuse, which he linked to portraits exhibited by Antonio de La Gándara in 1893. He also wrote the libretto to Pierre de Bréville's opera Éros vainqueur (1910).

Manuel Orazi illustrated his novella Ma petite ville in 1989.

Lorrain was openly gay, often citing ancient Greece as noble heritage for homosexuality, and became colloquially known as "The Ambassador from Sodom".

Due to tubercular symptoms, he started using morphine, and then moved on to drinking ether, a habit he shared with Guy de Maupassant. Under the influence of ether Lorrain wrote several horror stories, but eventually the substance gave him stomach ulcers and health problems.