«Lord Lyllian» est un roman à clefs où se rencontrent les sommités homosexuelles de la fin du XIXe: Oscar Wilde, Lord Alfred Douglas, John Gray, Jean Lorrain, Joséphin Péladan, Achille Essebac, Robert de Montesquiou, Friedrich Krupp —et Fersen lui-même— ainsi que leurs égéries les actrices Ellen Terry et Sarah Bernhard. Les amateurs de ces personnages devenus de véritables icônes se réjouiront de la manière dont Adelswärd-Fersen les met en scène avec des dialogues très camp que Wilde n’aurait pas reniés et dans des poses mélodramatiques à souhait.
Black Masses- Lord Lyllian [English translation]
This is the first English translation of the eccentric Baron Fersen’s decadent gay novel Lord Lillian. Published originally in 1905, this is perhaps his most important work, satirizing the scandal around himself in Paris, with touches of the Oscar Wilde affair thrown in for good measure. It is filled with outrageous descriptions of fin de siècle excesses, including Fersen’s own addiction to opium and adolescent boys. The hero, Lord Lyllian, departs on a wild odyssey of sexual debauchery, is seduced by a character that seems awfully similar to Oscar Wilde, falls in love with girls and boys, and is finally killed by a boy. The public outcry about his supposed Black Masses is also caricatured. (For allegedly holding Black Masses at his residence in Paris, Fersen was charged with indecent behavior with minors, served a six-month prison sentence, was fined 50 francs and lost his civil rights for five years.) The work is an audacious mix of fact and fiction, including four characters that are alter egos of Fersen himself. This edition is limited to 500 copies, bound in black silk with a tipped-in color image on the cover.
