Guy Endore Livres

Here is the first biography of Casanova, "the king of all adventurers," the great gallant of the Eighteenth Century. Liar, forger, cardsharp, adulterer, seducer, he had only his wits to protect him from unmasking - and the resultant imprisonment and poverty. Yet in the midst of his ruthless existence he found time to be, also, a student to the humanities, a philosopher, dramatist and poet. His Memoirs, famous through they are, have been unavailable to all but a few, and cover but a portion of his career. Mr. Endore has undertaken to sift out the falsehood in the Memoirs, fill in their hiatuses, and complete the life-story, basing it upon the latest available sources. So amazing was the life of this paradoxical gentlemen that a generation after his death the world refused to believe he had ever existed. He became a rakehelly myth. Mr. Endore has restored him to his rightful place in history, at the same time preserving the picturesque and flavorsome aspects of his nature.

The werewolf is one of the great iconic figures of horror in folklore, legend, film, and literature. And connoisseurs of horror fiction know that The Werewolf of Paris is a cornerstone work, a masterpiece of the genre that deservedly ranks with Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, Bram Stoker's Dracula, and Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Endore's classic novel has not only withstood the test of time since it was first published in 1933, but it boldly used and portrayed elements of sexual compulsion in ways that had never been seen before, at least not in horror literature. In this gripping work of historical fiction, Endore's werewolf, an outcast named Bertrand Caillet, travels across pre-Revolutionary France seeking to calm the beast within. Stunning in its sexual frankness and eerie, fog-enshrouded visions, this novel was decidedly influential for the generations of horror and science fiction authors who came afterward.

Mnohí z nás si s pôžitkom prečítali Troch mušketierov aj Grófa Monte Christo — ale málokto vie, že život autora týchto diel sa v mnohom vyrovná jeho románom. Alexandre Dumas, syn mulata, slávneho Napoleonovho generála, vynikal nielen nadaním, ale aj nespútanou ctižiadosťou a túžbou po sláve, prišiel do Paríža chudobný a začínal ako pisár, ale čoskoro sa osamostatnil a stal sa ozajstným nekorunovaným „Kráľom Paríža", zarobil a premrhal miliónové majetky, chválil sa tým, že je veľkým znalcom súbojových predpisov a sám vybojoval trinásť súbojov, bol velkým labužníkom a zakladal si na svojom kuchárskom umení, chrlil zo seba knihu za knihou, napísal vyše tristo románov a v citovom živote sa vyznačoval rovnakou nespútanosťou ako vo svojej tvorbe — ťažko povedať, či mal za sebou viac mileniek alebo kníh. Autor tejto knihy, Guy Endore, je pôvodom Američan, ale ako sirotu ho adoptovala Francúzka a vyrastal v Európe — vo Francúzsku a Rakúsku. Neskôr študoval na Columbijskej univerzite v New Yorku románske jazyky. Má teda všetky predpoklady, aby porozumel francúzskej mentalite, a pritom si od nej zachoval potrebný odstup. Okrem Kráľa Paríža napísal životopisný román Casanova, ktorého hrdinom je slávny dobrodruh a legendárny dobyvateľ ženských sŕdc, a ďalšie dva romány Parížsky vlkolak a Myslím, tá dáma. Popritom prekladal z francúzštiny a nemčiny a je autorom mnohých filmových scenárov.