Magic Lantern

Magic Lantern by Théodore de Banville (1823-1891) was first published in book form in France in 1883, but the 120 vignettes which make up its contents had previously appeared a year earlier in the newspaper Gil Blas. The volume, which is presented here for the first time in English, in a marvelous translation by Brian Stableford, is one of the early collections of poems in prose and also one of the most idiosyncratic products of a brief but important phase in the evolution of Parisian newspaper fiction. Whether or not it is entitled to be considered as one of the classic collections of prose poems, alongside those by Bertrand, Baudelaire, Huysmans and Remy de Gourmont, is a matter of opinion, but it is certainly a serious contender for such inclusion.