A Symbolist masterpiece from 1892 telling a fairly straighforward tale of
infatuation to the point of madness, betrayal and retribution. The main
thrust of the book is the setting - Bruges - which also features in the essay
contained in the book, ' The Death Throes of Towns'. That Bruges should be
so regarded is, of course, hard for present-day readers to accept as it is the
honeypot of Flandrian tourism and thus hardly a dead town. Historically,
however, this is not so as the town's medieval prosperity was cut short when
it was suddenly cut off from the sea which greatly restricted its trading
opportunities though it did continue with some success for several hundred
years until the coming of the Steam Age gave the deep-water port of Antwerp
its current dominance. The book is hypnotising and very effectively gives
a feeling of a town that has seen better days but is now a backwater. A small
side comment - 'Die Tote Stadt', Erich Korngold's opera, is based on this book.