“The Church Militant has never had a paladin more zealous than this Templar of the pen, whose daring criticism is a constant crusade... It seems that the French language has never risen to such arrogant paradoxicality. This fusion of rudeness with sophistication, violence with delicacy, bitterness with refinement is reminiscent of those witchcraft drinks that were made from flowers and snake venom, from the blood of a tigress and wild honey.” These words of P. de Saint-Victor strikingly accurately characterize the personality and work of Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly (1808-1889), and this volume of selected works of this one of the most extraordinary French writers of the 19th century, compiled from such recognized masterpieces as the novel " Spoiled" (1854), the collection of stories "Those of the Devil" (1873) and the story "The Story That Doesn't Even Have a Name" (1882) are the best confirmation of this. Barbe, who never hid his royalist views, whom Remy de Gourmont (1858–1915) called in his essay opening the book “a hidden classic” and included in “the clan of those who disdain virtue and mock ordinary sanity,” was repeatedly accused of immoralism - after the publication of “ Those of the Devil”, a lawsuit was even launched against him at the request of the republican press, but his controversial work was admired by fellow writers of various directions. “Barbet d'Aurevilly does not risk becoming a popular writer,” wrote M. Voloshin, “since in order to love him, you must reach that degree of consciousness when you begin to love a person only for the irreconcilability of the contradictions that are combined in him, for the breadth of the swing of the pendulum, for the majestic remoteness of the frosty poles of his soul,” and yet the editors hope that true lovers of French romanticism and symbolism will be able to appreciate this filigree prose, skillfully translated by M. and E. Kozhevnikov and equipped with comprehensive notes.