Of Kings and Things: Strange Tales and Decadent Poems by Count Eric Stanislaus Stenbock

by Count Stenbock, David Tibet (Editor), Timothy D'Arch Smith (Afterword)

An introduction to the Decadent writer Stanislaus Eric Stenbock for the general reader, offering morbid stories, suicidal poems, and an autobiographical essay.

Described by W. B. Yeats as a "scholar, connoisseur, drunkard, poet, pervert, most charming of men," Count Stanislaus Eric Stenbock (1860--1895) is surely the greatest exemplar of the Decadent movement of the late nineteenth century.

A friend of Aubrey Beardsley, patron of the extraordinary pre-Raphaelite artist Simeon Solomon, and contemporary of Oscar Wilde, Stenbock died at the age of thirty-six as a result of his addiction to opium and his alcoholism, having published just three slim volumes of suicidal poetry and one collection of morbid short stories.

Stenbock was a homosexual convert to Roman Catholicism and owner of a serpent, a toad, and a dachshund called Trixie. It was said that toward the end of his life he was accompanied everywhere by a life-size wooden doll that he believed to be his son. His poems and stories are replete with queer, supernatural, mystical, and Satanic themes; original editions of his books are highly sought by collectors of recherché literature.

Of Kings and Things is the first introduction to Stenbock's writing for the general reader, offering fifteen stories, eight poems and one autobiographical essay by this complex figure.

Genres: Poetry, Fiction, Horror, Collections, Fantasy, Weird Fiction, Anthologies

360 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2018

About the author

Count Eric Stanislaus (or Stanislaus Eric) Stenbock was a Baltic German poet and writer of macabre fantastic fiction. He was a symbol of his age, poet, decadent, short story writer, a true member of the aristocracy who mixed with the Socialists and radicals of the late Nineteenth Century. In his time he was known as a 'drunkard, poet, pervert, most charming of men' a description which serves to confuse more than illuminate. Stenbock's life in Brighton, London and Estonia gives us a window on to the complicated worlds of literature, art and fashion which characterised the late Nineteenth Century.

Stenbock was the count of Bogesund and the heir to an estate near Kolga in Estonia. He was the son of Lucy Sophia Frerichs, a Manchester cotton heiress, and Count Erich Stenbock, of a distinguished Baltic German noble family with Swedish roots which rose to prominence in the service of Gustav Vasa. Stenbock's great-grandfather was Baron Friedrich von Stuart (1761–1842) from Courland. Immanuel Kant was great-great-granduncle of count Eric Stenbock.

During his lifetime the eccentric Count Eric Stenbock published a single collection of short stories, Studies of Death. These seven tales, at once feverish, morbid, and touching, are a key work of English decadence and the Yellow Nineties.

W.B. Yeats called Stenbock: "Scholar, connoisseur, drunkard, poet, pervert, most charming of men." Arthur Symons saw him as "bizarre, fantastic, feverish, eccentric, extravagant, morbid and perverse."

In a short life - (he died at 36 in 1895) - he so impressed himself upon his contemporaries that the legends they tell of him in memoirs and anecdotes far outstrip the attention given to his writings.

Studies of Death: Romantic Tales appeared in 1894, ornamented with a striking frontispiece by its author. The seven stories reveal an original imagination and a spry, urbane style quite removed from the melancholy murmurings of the Count's verse.

Towards the end, the Count was mentally as well as physically ill. At Withdeane Hall he terrified the domestic staff with his persecution complex and his delirium tremens. On his travels he had been escorted, and with him went a dog, a monkey and a life-size doll. He was convinced that the doll was his son and referred to it as 'le Petit comte'. Every day it had to be brought to him, and when it was not there he would ask for news of its health.

He was buried at the Brighton Catholic Cemetery. Before burial his heart was extracted and sent to Estonia & placed among the Stenbock monuments in the church at Kusal. It was preserved in some fluid in a glass urn in a cupboard built into the wall of the church. At the time of his death, his uncle and heir, far away in Esbia, saw an apparition of his tear-stained face at his study window.

On the day of his death the Count, drunk and furious, had tried to strike someone with a poker and toppled into a grate. -- R. B. Russell

Reviews

[Andy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an odd collection of stories and poems, written by a true eccentric and decadent. I got the false impression somewhere that Stenbock's prose was dense and overly florid but that's not the case at all. These are simple and direct, almost fragile stories. Stenbock writes with a deft but light touch. Several of these are tragic conte cruels or supernatural stories, but most of them are mildly melancholic and wistful.

Stenbock can tell a good story, but I must admit that several of these were forgotten as soon as the book was closed. And these are best enjoyed in small doses (I spent weeks reading it). I'm not sure I can praise this as an Eminent, Forgotten Gem of Decadent Writing that begs to be read (there's so many "forgotten gems" these days, I can't keep up), but it is a very handsome book and given the rarity of some of the work therein we're all better for having it. But this is probably for the..."discerning reader" shall we say. And this is a bit hard to rate too, it consists of many stories, poems and even a play.

I'm not especially offended by politically incorrect statements, but there's a few here in the stories; some are quite anti-semetic, but his prejudices are sometimes quite amusing. Take this particularly excessive description of an "aggressively muscular" English sailor, "well-formed, perhaps, but wholly without grace [...] those stupid, dull, apathetic, impudent eyes, peculiar to this breed; features perhaps well-formed, but utterly dull and stolid..." Ouch! Retract the claws! The poetry is also quite good, simple and passionate, often tinged with a forlorn homoeroticism. The introduction by David Tibet is great and informative (and has no spoilers).


Hylas - This is a pretty good story, a bit of decadence, more of a tragic conte cruel perhaps. The male-male attraction in the story is rather obvious. A man encourages a talented young painter who he considers a rare unsoiled soul.

Narcissus - A simple, touching story of a lonely, disfigured man taking in a blind homeless child, the one person who cannot see his ugliness.

The Death of a Vocation - An odd little story about two unconventional people who intend to marry so they can avoid the pressures and expectations of traditional married life.

Viol D'Amor - A very strange story of a family who attempts an occult ritual to aid their poor father, with tragic results. I liked this one a lot.

The Egg of the Albatross - This may be my favorite and it's certainly not easy to forget. It reads like a sad fairy tale. A young girl lives alone in a lighthouse, completely self-sufficient with an odd connection with the sea.

A True Story of a Vampire - I have to wonder if Stenbock read Sheridan Le Fanu's "Carmilla," considering the protagonist in this tale is named Carmela, and is also about a vampire invited into the house of a family. This is a pretty good vampire tale, another of my favorite pieces.

The Worm of Luck - Another story that feels like a tragic fairy tale, although for much of its length I found it humorous. A young man with "Gypsy blood" is kicked out of his home by a brutal step father.

The Other Side - If you're gay, the allusions of this story will probably ring even more true for you. This is one of the longer stories, and perhaps because of that alone it is one of the better-executed tales although some elements of it don't always make sense. A boy explores a forbidden side of a brook the locals fear, with its marvels and horrors.

Faust - This is another of the better stories, also longer, close to being an actual horror tale. This may also be the most decadent story of the collection. A man comes across a deceased monks manuscript which is full of blasphemous details.

The Story of a Scapular - This story has some wild, hellish visions and has perhaps the most overt homosexuality. A man is poisoned by his lover and enters Hell.

A Modern St. Venatius - This is a very short story, practically a vignette about a cruel princess who wishes to see a (beautiful of course) young man torn apart by lions in an arena.

La Girandola, A Study in Morbid Pathology - I found this story very dull, and unfortunately it's one of the longer pieces in the book. There's some interesting ideas here, primarily the tragic obsession of the titular character, but this story never surprised or excited me. It's a sort of tragic love story between two women of the opera.

The Child of The Soul - This is the longest story here and fortunately also one of the more interesting ones. I thought I knew where this was headed at first but it throws an interesting twist and some surprises I didn't expect. A woman recounts her encounter with an Earl and how she became involved with his dark family secrets.

The King's Bastard (Or, The Triumph of Evil) - This one's OK, a sort of political intrigue conte cruel. An aging king is manipulated as he tries to choose his heir.

A Secret Kept - This is another story of intrigue and secrecy, but this time focused around tragic love and some hideous murders.

La Mazurka Des Revenants - This is a play instead of a story. It's a bit amateurish I suppose, but it's a fun read, funny at times, perhaps unintentionally so. It follows a fairly common ghost story formula. Two young men become lost and encounter a ghostly ball.

Poems - I liked several of the poems here. "The Balad of the Dead Sea Fruit" is a macabre and evocative piece and "Sonnet V On a Dream" is similarly nightmarish. "Cradle Song" is downright antinatalist in sentiment. "Sonnet VII" is a very beautiful poem about gone lovers and painful reminisces. These poems are all sad and bleak, often homoerotic or at least odes to homosexual love. They're very visual, simple and enjoyable.

The Myth of Punch - A short essay on the character of Punch, more interesting than I expected.

[John Allen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Poet W.B. Yeats described Count Stanislaus Eric Stenbock (1865-1890) as a "scholar, connosieur, pervert, drunkard, and most charming of all men." This volume, lovingingly compiled by Current 93's David Tibet, confirms most of that.

Stenbock has always been a legend of sorts, though his material has not been available to read for a long time now. I half anticipated a disappointing reading, or that this somehow *too* archetypal dandy would actually be disappointing. None of this is true.

His command of prose (which draws your attention to the most disturbing of implications at the least expected times) is immaculate, and nearly all of these poems match up with the greats, mostly recalling Thomas Levell Beddoes. He is somehow more understated than Charles Baudelaire himself while saying the same things, though his Roman Catholic faith is given a more morose expression.

Tibet's biography is sad, painting the portrait of a dope fiend lost in his family because nothing in particular was expected of him. Cultivating the look of a dandy very carefully, it worked. He slowly lost his personality as his addiction progressed. The oddest thing is an episode where he thought he had a son and it was actually a doll. He talked about poor people as if they were disposable trash. He died at thirty-six in a psychotic state.

His command of prose reveals itself also when he begins a tale or a paragraph like a professional decadent, as good as Symons or Wilde, and then turns it into a vehicle for the nerve-wracking or menacing:

"I was taken up several flight of stairs, and then the bandages were removed. I was in a chapel. My first impression that peculiar perfume of honeysuckle, jasmine, and spiced incense, that I had before. The perfume seemed to emanate from the many candles and candelabra about the chapel, which were all black, but which emitted a rose-coloured flame. It was so faint a light that it was impossible to distinguish the others who were in a chapel. The alter, which was of material, was in the form of a great coiled serpent. Thereon were six black candles, burning with a steady and somewhat brighter flame. In the midst there was a bronze statue, a reproduction of the vision I had the week before: with great outspread wings, silver and rose-colour. In the left hand it held aloft a singularly bright light, and in the right one downwards a cornucopia. On either side were too much smaller statues on the right, Baal; on the left, Astarte, both terrifically obscene. In the middle, between the feet of the statue was a still more horrible figure of Moloch, holding a hatchet in his hand".

Many of his stories are simple tales of decadence, like something Leonid Andreyev would write. The poems "Insomnia", "The White Rose", and three others are the work of a sincere man of faith. This is terrifying material and also Beddoes like in their nearness to mortality, but I doubt Stenbock was anything like these rumors created about him by people like Aleister Crowley. The impression his picture leaves you with is a of a half Wilde, half Dylan Thomas, sallow and melancholy poet who probably spent more time in the library than anywhere else. Great stuff.

[Jim Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't think a more perfect introductory book for those new to Count Stenbock could have been assembled than Of Kings and Things. A sympathetic bio from editor David Tibet is followed by the stories from Stenbock's Studies of Death book, his classic werewolf horror tale 'The Other Side', his grotesque and disturbing take on 'Faust' and then a large collection of material I had never hoped to read, including his beautiful decadent poetry.

I was already impressed and intrigued by Stenbock after reading the final batch of three stories in Studies of Death (I found some of the others to be a bit thin and underdeveloped in comparison), but this book confirmed him as a great writer worthy of the mythical posterity that a bizarre life afforded this sympathetic and strange figure.

[Signor Mambrino · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a fantastic collection. It's a pity that it was only made widely available to the public in 2018.

[athanasia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Do not ask me how I came across this remarkably obscure book; all I know is that this may have awakened the antiquarian within me—a wholly unsurprising development if you ask me—because how could one not be taken by the eccentric and bizarre lure of Count Stenbock?

To quote one of the outrageously fantastical portraits of the Count that the introductory chapter opens with:

“[he] made an attempt to understand his own homosexuality in terms of traditional occultism, eventually coming to view his condition as an aspect of vampirism and lycanthropy… torn between Catholicism and diabolism… he died, deluded that a huge doll was his son and heir, in 1895.”

Okay while the last claim may be unconfirmed, this description perfectly captures the weird yet magical essence that can be traced throughout this anthology.

Stenbock’s career blossomed in England where he both delighted and disturbed his fellow Decadents with his quirks. What stood out to me the most though were the earlier accounts of his time spent on the palatial grounds of his family manor in Estonia:

“And that was the beginning of a new life in the old castle, a life full of fantasy, a fairy-tale land, because Cousin Eric could do everything: play the piano and compose, sing and write poems. There was something happening every day, plays or charades, otherwise he couldn't bear the life of a big house in the country. The children cheered him on and he showered them with gifts—he could well afford it. If a bank note was not clean and new enough by his standards, he would burn it, no matter its value. Eric was wonderful; when he took a walk with the children Violet had to look for and collect frogs, toads and lizards and carry them home in the ‘basket of abominations’. The animals were then given a new home in her room and Eric would coax out the lizards by playing his flute. Eric would tell such funny tales about the animals. His monkey, a snake whom he often placed around his neck, and turtles shared his room which was filled with plants and beautifully-smelling resins, which would burn constantly in a small stove. ”

…How is this not an excerpt from a children’s book?

Anyway, after this very enchanting biography I braced myself for some decidedly imposing and florid prose. And yet the writing of “The King of the Decadents” turned out to be shockingly un-decadent; indeed, all of Stenbock's works are written in a plain and straightforward manner while possessing a morbid yet child-like quality.

Personally I found his short stories to be more engaging than his poetry though most of them were a bit forgettable. My favorite one was The Egg of the Albatross (honorable mention: Sonnet V On a Dream from his poetry collection). So really, while I cannot call any of them literary masterpieces, I am grateful (if not touched) to have momentarily glimpsed the inner world of such a fascinating yet sadly forgotten figure.

[Eric Hoffman · Rating 4 out of 5]

In his anthology The Oxford Book of Modern Verse, 1892-1935, W.B. Yeats describes the fin de siècle, decadent, Pre-Raphaelite-era author and poet Stanislaus Eric Stenbock (1865-1890) as a “scholar, connoisseur, drunkard, poet, pervert, most charming of men.” Despite this endorsement, in the years since his death, Stenbock’s distinctive body of work—his meagre output, three thin volumes of verse and one book of short stories, all of them published in small, privately printed editions—has languished in an unfortunate obscurity. A reappraisal of this distinctive body of work is long overdue, so it is fortunate that Strange Attractor Press has recently published, under the careful stewardship of editor David Tibet, Of Kings & Things, a selection of Stenbock’s finest work.

Stenbock was born to the daughter of wealthy German cotton importer and an Estonian aristocrat and, following his father’s death, his mother remarried a clerk who later obtained position of Permanent Secretary in the British Treasury. As a result, financially speaking Stenbock lived a charmed life. He was a sickly child, spent much of his upbringing in German private schools, and briefly attended Oxford, which he left before obtaining his degree. Originally a Protestant, Stenbock converted to Roman Catholicism, much to his family’s dismay. Given his extravagances, which were decidedly not limited to his religiosity, his stepfather placed him on a rather strict allowance. From an early age, Stenbock exhibited artistic tendencies. At only twenty-one years of age, he privately published his first book, Love, Sleep, And Dreams, a small collection of dark, densely allusive, richly textured poems that went largely unnoticed. This was followed by a second volume, Myrtle, Rue, And Cypress (1883), again privately printed, which consists of frequently supernatural-themed poems. Stenbock dedicated the collection to several young men, including Simeon Solomon, a tragic pre-Raphaelite painter who ten years earlier had been criminally prosecuted for a homosexual liaison in a public toilet. Again, the volume was ignored.

In considerable debt to his printers due to a lack of sales, Stenbock escaped to Europe, and while there he experienced some comparative impoverishment. He also apparently suffered from mental illness: He traveled frequently during this period and it is said that he was always accompanied by a life-sized doll made of wood; he called this doll ‘le petit comte’ and believed it to be his son. Stenbock’s fortunes improved when, in 1885 he inherited a vast Estonian estate from his grandfather, and took up residence in the estate's palatial manor, cohabitating with his cousin Theophile von Bodisco and other relatives. Stenbock lived in considerable luxury, yet he soon tired of Estonian provincialism, and longed the familiarity of English life. He returned to London in 1887 and came to associate with some of the best-known talents of the day, including Oscar Wilde, the artist Aubrey Beardsley, publisher Ernest Rhys, and poet Arthur Symons.

In 1893, Stenbock published his last volume of poems, the decidedly melancholic The Shadow of Death. He also dabbled in the short story form. Only one book of short stories was published in his lifetime, Studies of Death: Romantic Tales (1894). That same year, Stenbock submitted his “supernatural time-slip play” (in Tibet’s description), La Mazurka des Revenants, for consideration in The Yellow Book; the work was ultimately rejected due to space considerations. Stenbock died the following year after he collapsed during an apparent drunken, psychotic rampage in which he attempted to attack someone, possibly a housekeeper, with a fire poker; the likely cause of death was cirrhosis, the culmination a lifetime of drug abuse.

Given the prevalence of poetry to his previously published work, Of Kings & Things is, interestingly enough, comprised primarily of a selection of Stenbock’s finest prose efforts, including fifteen of his best stories, eight poems of varying length, and an autobiographical essay. This handsome edition is illustrated with a number of fascinating portraits of Stenbock and his family and associates and, most welcomingly, reproductions of his original books, themselves lovely objet d’art. Modern readers of Stenbock’s work should find it a revelation; at his best, Stenbock’s stories anticipates similar dreamlike themes, subjects, and stylistic devices as the weird fiction stories of subsequent decades—everything from werewolves to vampires to demonic pacts, among other occult subjects—and his lush poetry, despite its Roman Catholic overtones, certainly ranks among the most depressingly morbid, death-obsessed verse of its era.
-- Eric Hoffman, The Fortean Times

[rob · Rating 4 out of 5]

decadent mysteries from the count! i hesitated on giving this three stars because it took me so long to finish it that it might be said to drag in its weaker moments, but two things changed my mind. most of the stories fit with his contemporaries albeit with more subtle themes and a lack of monsters and ghosts (this isn't lovecraft or m.r. james). it's much more in line with machen but with a dedicated melancholy byzantium around its edges, that doesn't quite fit either.

"faust" and "child of the soul" are the best things here, masterful backbrain stimulants of the highest dosage they spotlight just why the eccentricities of authors that appeal to david tibet seem to come from a literary elsewhere, terrestrial in format but celestial in execution. "child of the soul" especially touches on most of the motifs present through all the stories and poetry herein; youth, death, bondage and a quiet affirmation of music's ontological power over all. the ending is subdued, powerful and mysterious. whatever moved the count to write these stories probably fell within the remit of their joining. pray for the child of all our souls.

[Matthew · Rating 4 out of 5]

This anthology edited by David Tibet of Current 93 is a true gift to enthusiasts and students of late 19th Century Decadent fiction and poetry. I spent many years waiting for an affordable collection of Stenbock’s works to be published, and I was thrilled to finally add this handsome and well-designed book to my personal library.

The book includes several short stories and a generous selection of poems. I enjoyed the stories from “Studies of Death” (1894) — along with “The Other Side” and “Faust” — the most, as they contained supernatural elements. These tales include vampires, werewolves, magical violins, and demonic pacts, but Stenbock utilizes these common tropes in a more dreamlike, subtle, and fantastical manner in keeping with the aesthetics of the late 19th century.

The poems are dark and lush, redolent with the requisite imagery of death, dying flowers, dreams, ghosts, and lost love. Stenbock’s verse is reminiscent of early Swinburne but not quite as technically ambitious or as varied in rhyme or rhythm. It’s great, gloomy, vivid, imaginative verse but it is somewhat slight in comparison to someone like Yeats or the Romantic poets of the early 19th Century.

I believe connoisseurs of classic dark fiction and/or poetry should own this book. As expected, some stories and poems stand out more than others; but there’s no question that Stenbock made important contributions to the decadent literature of 1890s, and it’s awesome that his work has been made available again.

[Allen Svensson · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best summation I can give of Stenbock is beauty as it relates to time. That can’t possibly encompass all of what he’s written but most of it deals with youth and beauty encountering death. Limerence is also a frequent element and in a broader sense it could be said that limerence characterizes the Counts attitude toward life, he desperately wants to love something that is ultimately inaccessible or too painful to face directly. The occasional childlike plot structuring or lack there of can be off putting at first but I came to appreciate it as an idiosyncrasy of his or possibly a deliberate stylistic choice. True Story of a Vampire, La Girandola, and the prose poem Nocturne, all stand out as being the best material from this collection. I must give a big thank you to the luminous multi-disciplinarian David Tibet, whose art always seems to lead to the strangest and most wonderful places.

[Dawn · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of short stories, poems, songs and an essay.

Whilst I personally don't think he's one of 'the great' writers I feel taken as a whole his writing was interesting in that he obviously had a specific vocabulary, style and interests which he worked with. His stories and tales tend to be subtler than you'd probably imagine. The author is described as quite the eccentric but that doesn't often come through in the writing. His writing is generally rather paired back and often times the gothic and unusual elements are buried and never fully revealed.

No one particular story blew me away but I did enjoy this collection as a whole. I didn't get much from his poetry (other than the fact that he was obviously very depressed) and preferred the stories ten-fold. I look forward to delving into this again one day.

[Rich Oxley · Rating 2 out of 5]

Such a gorgeously presented anthology from Strange Attractor Press probably deserved a more talented subject. These short stories were all very heavy on exposition, with the eventual payoff being pretty lacklustre. The poems were slightly more accomplished, but I never really received any kind of thrill at any point with this book. This was a great shame, because he lived such a wild and eccentric life, but there was just none of that flair in his writing.

[Zac Hawkins · Rating 5 out of 5]

“To travel is to die continuously,
To see things at their saddest-passing away-
The horror of strange faces every day
And the sad travail of still-born sympathy.”

Stenbock was a strange, tormented soul. He kept peacocks in his closet. And mannequins in his bathtub. And is prose, to say nothing of his verse, is some of the most enrapturing of the decadent form.
Not typically one for these curated collection but Tibett didn’t put a foot wrong here, an essential read for all.

[Wilks Crescendo · Rating 4 out of 5]

A 7.5/10, An anthology of death, love, betrayal, serpents, God, and the Devil. There are so many intricate stories that deal with this general range of themes but the one that stuck out to me the most was La Girandola which was an interesting take of morbid love which ended in a poetic death. He's got a lot of interesting works in here. My favorites were La Girandola, Narcissus, The Egg of Albatross, Faust, and the Story of A scapular. Interesting anthology!

[Brendan · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent collection of decadent stories and poetry, ranging from typical late Victorian ghost stories to bleak, depressing poetry. Tibet’s introductory and conclusory materials are fascinating as well, providing a detailed portrait of a writer who may have been forgotten altogether if not for his attentions.

[Sandi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not as strange or revealing in the bizarre as I would have expected. Instead, many of his story stories are touching and very compact. I was also surprised to see very few twists in the tales. Another reader described them as "delicate' and I think I would agree. Most are very brief, like capturing the story in a scene of a Waterhouse painting.

[Keith · Rating 4 out of 5]

The poetry is, well, pretty bad (lots of hearts bleeding, weeping, and so on), but the fiction is top shelf Decadent fare. David Tibet offers a nice introduction and the book itself is lovingly designed. This press and Wakefield Press are doing a wonderful job getting this material back in print.

[Samuel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very Decadent.

[Arthur B · Rating 5 out of 5]

Magnificent collection, including the entirety of Stenbock's fantastic anthology Studies of Death and more besides. Full review: https://fakegeekboy.wordpress.com/202...

[Bee · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read:

The Other Side - 3/5