Enamels & Cameos, by Théophile Gautier (AD 1811-1872), was originally published in 1852. Théophile Gautier was an incredibly gifted, influential, and popular French author of the period, who wrote novels, short stories, plays, ballets, poetry, and travelogues. Today he is best known, at least to the English-speaking public, for his poetry. The poetry he wrote could be called Romantic, or it could be considered in reaction to Romanticism. However qualified, it is lyrical, inventive, and highly imagistic. One can see the influence he had on such poets as Baudelaire, Mallarmé, Rimbaud, Verlaine, Villiers de lʼIsle Adam. He is known to have influenced Oscar Wilde and Ezra Pound.

Here is an example of his poetry, from “Obelisk Nostalgias,” in this volume:

Scraping the motionless azure,
With my vermillion pyramidion,
With my shadow, on the sand,
Sketching the sunʼs progress!

And this from “Secret Affinities”:

You before whom I burn and tremble,
What rosebush, what pediment, what wave,
What dome has known us together,
Pearl or marble, flower or ringdove?

This edition also contains, in appendix, a critical essay entitled "Théophile Gautier" by Charles Baudelaire, the famous French poet and critic, who was a contemporary and acquaintance of Gautier.

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