21 Days of a Neurasthenic

Octave Mirbeau, author of The Torture Garden and Diary of a Chambermaid, wrote this scathing novel on the cusp of the twentieth century. Driven mad by modern life, Georges Vasseur leaves for a rest cure, where he encounters corrupt politicians, amnesiac coquettes, cheerfully sadistic killers, imperialist generals, and quack psychiatrists. Hypocrites are eternal, and not much has changed since Mirbeau wrote this acid portrait of his era.


About the Author

Octave Mirbeau (1848-1917) was one of the leading lights of the "Decadent" movement in French literature, as well as one of its most savage parodists; producing works in virtually every genre (reportage, art and literary criticism, travel writing, fiction, and drama), he exploded the boundaries of the nineteenth-century novel, pointing the way to everything from surrealism to gonzo journalism.