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The poems in this book, first published in 1890, present not only a poet searching for a voice, but also a female poet searching for a voice while breaking down rules of both versification and gender-determined source of expression. They went straight to the heart of the male-dominated poetry of the time and effectively threatened its existence.

In this new edition, John Flower provides a full contextualising introduction of Jean Paulhan's Lettre aux directeurs de la Resistance. The volume makes an important contribution to our understanding of this turbulent period and provides a documentary history of the post-war political and literary debates in Paris.

Gregoire Le Roy was at school in Ghent with Maeterlinck and Van Leberghe, and grew up in the same atmosphere of intellectual ferment. His first collection of published verse just pre-dates Maeterlinck's Serres chaudes. His fin-de-siecle poetry was highly considered at the time of its first appearance, and was widely published in reviews. He treats all the major themes of the period, with special emphasis on a melancholy tone, half-tint landscapes, overt musicality, and (almost obsessively) the destructive nature of time.This is the first edition since their original publication in 1889 and 1907 of the three collections of poems by a significant member of the Belgian Symbolist school.Republishing Le Roy's early work is an important step in recreating an accurate intellectual portrait of an important and influential movement.