The Child of Pleasure

Gabriele D'Annunzio · 1863–1938 · Italy

Originally Il piacere (Italian)

Why it matters

Aesthete Andrea Sperelli pursues beauty and sensation through Rome's aristocratic drawing rooms, juggling two ruinous love affairs while his own will slowly withers. D'Annunzio's Huysmans-indebted debut novel imported French Decadence wholesale into Italian fiction and made style itself the subject.

At a glance

Ornate, digressive prose luxuriates in sensory description at the expense of narrative momentum.