De La VAUDERE, Jane. Les Androgynes.

(Paris): A. Méricant, [1903].  First edition. Softcover.  19.2cm by 13cm.  289 [2] pages. A provocative and richly symbolic novel of erotic ambiguity, Les Androgynes is Jane de La Vaudère’s (the pen name of Jeanne Scrive) decadent masterpiece—an intoxicating tableau of sapphic longing, gender inversion, and polymorphous desire at the fin-de-siècle. Written in lush, perfumed prose and structured as a series of tableaux vivants, the novel centers on the magnetic figure of Nora la Comète—an androgynous femme fatale who seduces and subverts in equal measure. Through masked balls, opium salons, and shadowy boudoirs, Nora moves fluidly between roles and genders, sparking passions in both women and men. Her relationships with other women—sensual, mystical, transgressive—are presented not merely as titillation, but as a potent critique of bourgeois sexuality and a celebration of erotic freedom. Male characters are feminized, power structures reversed, and sapphism and uranism rendered not pathological but exalted. Part symbolist reverie, part decadent erotica, the novel is one of the most daring explorations of androgyny and same-sex desire written by a woman in the Belle Époque. Neumont’s 25 illustrations amplify the text’s voluptuous atmosphere, framing its transgressive content in the stylized elegance of Art Nouveau.  This is a very good copy in illustrated wrappers, some fading to the red lettering at the spine.  A nice copy of this rare and compelling example of early queer literature, that offers a distinctly female gaze on erotic and gendered transgression.