Imaginary Lives

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“The art of the biographer consists specifically in choice. He is not meant to worry about speaking truth; he must create human characteristics amidst the chaos.”—Marcel Schwob. Over 120 years after its original French publication, this collection remains a key influence in modern literature, impacting writers like Apollinaire, Borges, Jarry, and Artaud, as well as contemporary authors such as Bolaño and Echenoz. Drawing from historical figures like Plutarch and Diogenes Laërtius, Schwob pioneered the genre of fictional biography, emphasizing individual specificity over historical generality and the memorable detail of vice over the banality of virtue. The twenty-two portraits feature figures from history's margins, including Empedocles the “Supposed God,” Clodia the “Licentious Matron,” pirate Captain Kidd, and Scottish murderers Burke and Hare. Schwob's quest for unique existences led to an early conception of the anti-hero, focusing on shadows of historical figures—divine, mediocre, or criminal. These “imaginary lives” introduce us to the “Hateful Poet” Cecco Angiolieri, romantic pirate Major Stede Bonnet, false confessor Nicolas Loyseleur, and actor Gabriel Spenser, offering a fresh perspective on their more famous counterparts. “A writer without compare.”—Guillaume Apollinaire. “An excellent artist.”—Léon Bloy. “Schwob: ‘He who knows.’”—Alfred Jarry.