Jean Lombard was a French novelist of the late nineteenth century. His work, with its themes of orientalism

Orientalism

Orientalism is a term used for the imitation or depiction of aspects of Eastern cultures in the West by writers, designers and artists, as well as having other meanings...

, androgyny

Androgyny

Androgyny is a term derived from the Greek words ανήρ, stem ανδρ- and γυνή , referring to the combination of masculine and feminine characteristics...

 and paganism

Paganism

Paganism is a blanket term, typically used to refer to non-Abrahamic, indigenous polytheistic religious traditions....

, had deep affiliations with the Decadent movement

Decadent movement

The Decadent movement was a late 19th century artistic and literary movement of Western Europe. It flourished in France, but also had devotees in England and throughout Europe, as well as in the United States.-Overview:...

 in literature. Although almost completely forgotten today, he influenced contemporaries such as Rachilde

Rachilde

Rachilde was the nom de plume of Marguerite Vallette-Eymery, a French author who was born February 11, 1860 in Périgueux, Périgord, Dordogne, Aquitaine, France during the Second French Empire and died on April 4, 1953....

 and Jean Lorrain

Jean Lorrain

Jean Lorrain , born Paul Duval, was a French poet and novelist of the Symbolist school....

. His best known work, based on the Roman emperor Heliogabalus

Elagabalus

Elagabalus , also known as Heliogabalus, was Roman Emperor from 218 to 222. A member of the Severan Dynasty, he was Syrian on his mother's side, the son of Julia Soaemias and Sextus Varius Marcellus. Early in his youth he served as a priest of the god El-Gabal at his hometown, Emesa...

, is L'agonie (1888), for which Octave Mirbeau

Octave Mirbeau

Octave Mirbeau was a French journalist, art critic, travel writer, pamphleteer, novelist, and playwright, who achieved celebrity in Europe and great success among the public, while still appealing to the literary and artistic avant-garde...

 wrote a preface. According to William Sharp

William Sharp (writer)

William Sharp was a Scottish writer, of poetry and literary biography in particular, who from 1893 wrote also as Fiona MacLeod, a pseudonym kept almost secret during his lifetime...

, Lombard died in 1891 in poverty, bordering on starvation.

External links

• Works by Jean Lombard at the Bibliothèque Nationale. Octave Mirbeau
  Octave Mirbeau
  Octave Mirbeau was a French journalist, art critic, travel writer, pamphleteer, novelist, and playwright, who achieved celebrity in Europe and great success among the public, while still appealing to the literary and artistic avant-garde...
  
  , « Jean Lombard ».