These possible lives - fleur jaeggy

New Directions is proud to present Fleur Jaeggys strange and mesmerizing essays about the writers Thomas De Quincey, John Keats, and Marcel Schwob.

A renowned stylist of hyper-brevity in fiction, Fleur Jaeggy proves herself an even more concise master of the essay form, albeit in a most peculiar and lapidary poetic vein.

Of De Quinceys early nineteenth-century world we hear of the habits of writers: Charles Lamb spoke of Lilliputian rabbits when eating frog fricassse; Henry Fuseli ate a diet of raw meat in order to obtain splendid dreams; Hazlitt was perceptive about musculature and boxers; and Wordsworth used a buttery knife to cut the pages of a first-edition Burke.

In a book of blue devils and night visions, the Keats essay opens: In 1803, the guillotine was a common childs toy.

And poor Schwobs end comes as he feels like a dog cut open alive His face colored slightly, turning into a mask of gold.

His eyes stayed open imperiously.

No one could shut his eyelids.

The room smoked of grief.

Fleur Jaeggys essays--or are they prose poems?--smoke of necessity: the pages are on fire.