"All this he saw, for one moment breathless and intense, vivid on the morning sky; and still, as he looked, he lived; and still, as he lived, he wondered."

The Shrimp-Prince

I received a lovely rejection yesterday, detailing why the agency can’t undertake representation of my project and prompting me to submit more works in the future. I know it might be a form and all, but it was a kind form nonetheless.

Back to business, this means my patrons get another fairy tale, and this time it’s free for all: it’s another original translation of a story by Guido Gozzano, a late-XIX-Century Italian symbolist poet, and it features the story of a Prince who gets cursed to… go backwards. He walks like a Shrimp, even when he’s on horseback, and most importantly, he starts rejuvenating. Francis Scott Fitzgerald‘s short story “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” (you might remember the movie) is from 1922, while this story is from around 1901.
Weird, right?
The same theme of a man ageing backwards can be found in the 1989 science fiction novel Hyperion by American author Dan Simmons, in which the structures known as “Time Tombs” are pockets where time runs backwards. Bradley Cooper is making a movie out of it.

Anyway, the full text of the fairy tale is in the Patreon post, which, as I said, this time is not behind the subscription.

Advent Calendar

Elizabeth Gaskell — The Heart of John Middleton

I was born at Sawley, where the shadow of Pendle Hill falls at sunrise. I suppose Sawley sprang up into a village in the time of the monks, who had an abbey there. Many of the cottages are strange old places; others, again, are built

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Advent Calendar

E.T.A. Hoffman — Automata

A considerable time ago I was invited to a little evening gathering, where our friend Vincent was, along with some other people. I was detained by business, and did not arrive till very late. I was all the more surprised not to hear the slightest

Read More »
Advent Calendar

Mary E. Wilkins Freeman — A Stolen Christmas

“I don’t s’pose you air goin’ to do much Christmas over to your house.” Mrs. Luther Ely stood looking over her gate. There was a sweet, hypocritical smile on her little thin red mouth. Her old china-blue eyes stared as innocently as a baby’s, although

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E.T.A. Hoffman — Automata

A considerable time ago I was invited to a little evening gathering, where our friend Vincent was, along with some other people. I was detained by business, and did not arrive till very late. I was all the more surprised not to hear the slightest

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Mary E. Wilkins Freeman — A Stolen Christmas

“I don’t s’pose you air goin’ to do much Christmas over to your house.” Mrs. Luther Ely stood looking over her gate. There was a sweet, hypocritical smile on her little thin red mouth. Her old china-blue eyes stared as innocently as a baby’s, although

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