Édouard Dubus

Born in Beauvais in 1864, Édouard Dubus was a French poet, literary journalist, and trained lawyer who became part of the Symbolist and Decadent circles in Paris. He is known as one of the cofounders of the third Mercure de France, placing him close to a review that mattered deeply to late 19th-century French literary life.

Dubus published poetry during his lifetime, including Quand les violons sont partis, and his poems were later gathered in a posthumous edition. His writing is often linked with the fin-de-siècle taste for spiritual unease, dreamlike imagery, and the pull of occultism and mysticism.

His life was brief and troubled: he died in Paris in 1895, not 1894 as sometimes listed. That early death, together with the dark intensity of his poetry and the company he kept, helped turn him into one of the more haunting minor voices of French Symbolism.