Jean Lorrain, later famous as the author of such Decadent masterpieces as Nightmares of an Ether Drinker and Errant Vice, began his literary career in 1882 with the book of poems titled The Blood of the Gods-sending a sophisticated shudder through the caf?s of Montmartre.

In this volume, presented here for the first time in English, in a translation by Jacob Rabinowitz, Lorrain, the self-proclaimed "ambassador from Sodom," gives exquisite expression to Symbolist and Pre-Raphaelite themes, expanding them, with defiant pride, to include unambiguous accounts of male homosexuality. Only now, more than a century later, can we fully appreciate the courage and the suffering behind his brilliant and sardonic self-expression.