Joris-Karl Huysmans

French author and critic Charles-Marie-Georges Huysmans was also an art critic. He is well known for the book Rebours (1884, published in English as Against the Grain and as Against Nature). His writings reflected his profound pessimism, which had introduced him to Arthur Schopenhauer's philosophy. In 1848, Huysmans was born in Paris. Godfried Huysmans, a Dutchman, was a lithographer by profession. Malvina Badin Huysmans, his mother, had worked as a headmistress. When Huysmans was eight years...See more

French author and critic Charles-Marie-Georges Huysmans was also an art critic. He is well known for the book Rebours (1884, published in English as Against the Grain and as Against Nature). His writings reflected his profound pessimism, which had introduced him to Arthur Schopenhauer's philosophy. In 1848, Huysmans was born in Paris. Godfried Huysmans, a Dutchman, was a lithographer by profession. Malvina Badin Huysmans, his mother, had worked as a headmistress. When Huysmans was eight years old, his father passed away. Huysmans disliked his stepfather, Jules Og, a Protestant who co-owned a bookbindery in Paris when his mother quickly remarried. Huysmans drifted away from the Catholic Church as a kid. Despite his discontent at school, he finished his study and received a baccalaureate. Huysmans served as a public servant for the French Ministry of the Interior for 32 years, a position he disliked. Huysmans never got married and never had kids. He had an extended, on-and-off romance with seamstress Anna Meunier.Huysmans received a mouth cancer diagnosis in 1905. He passed away in 1907 and was buried in Paris' Montparnasse Cemetery. See less