A new book by the famous historian and collector Vasily Molodyakov presents decadence as a cultural phenomenon on a global scale in portraits of its characteristic figures. The life history of the great decadents - three French (Charles Baudelaire, Paul Verlaine, Arthur Rimbaud) and three Russians (Konstantin Balmont, Valery Bryusov, Fyodor Sologub) - is well known (all of them are represented by books in the “Lives of Remarkable People” series), so the French are shown primarily through their perception in Russia, Russians through their perception of French decadence. The gallery is completed by Alexander Dobrolyubov, the most consistent of the Russian decadents, and Alexander Emelyanov-Kokhansky, an example of the commercialization of literary fashion through scandal. British decadence is represented not by the popularized Oscar Wilde, but by the less famous in Russia, but more talented poet Algernon Swinburne, German - by the esthete and author of "horror" films Hans Evers, American - by the one and only George Viereck.