The Eleven Thousand Rods

In Guillaume Apollinaire's THEˆELEVENˆTHOUSANDˆRODS (Les Onze Mille Verges), debauched aristocrat Mony Vibescu and a circle of fellow sybarites blaze a trail of uncontrollable lust, bloody cruelty and depravity across the streets of Europe. Published in 1907 after Apollinaire's researches at the Enfer section of the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris, in which he encountered the suppressed "pornographic" work of such authors as de Sade, Restif de la Bretonne and Andrea de Nerciat, THEˆELEVENˆTHOUSANDˆRODS is a startling modernist response to those "old masters" of erotica, purposefully expanding and detonating the extremes of obscenity as far as the human imagination will allow. This special centenary edition is the only uncensored version available, in a new modern translation by Alexis Lykiard, complete with introduction and notes.