Against Nature
About this audiobook
Published in 1884, Against Nature (À rebours) concerns the attempts of its cultured and neurotic anti-hero, Des Esseintes, to escape contemporary Parisian life. At his rural retreat he is able to indulge his particular artistic tastes as he muses on a range of topics including literature, religion and painting.
Although regarded as shocking on its publication, Against Nature was received with enthusiasm by the aesthetic movement and, most particularly, Oscar Wilde, who featured the book in The Picture of Dorian Gray. Against Nature marks a departure from the classic form of 19th-century literature, and this audiobook features the full text, with previously expurgated parts restored.
About the author
Leighton Pugh trained at LAMDA, after studying Modern Languages at Queen’s College, Oxford. Radio work includes the plays Murder by the Book and Scenes from Provincial Life for BBC Radio 4 and the voice of Heinrich von Kleist in the BBC Radio 3 documentary The Tragical Adventure of Heinrich von Kleist. Leighton has been in five productions for the National Theatre, most recently The Lehman Trilogy (NT Live 2018–19, New York, West End). For Naxos AudioBooks he has recorded, among other things, The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Zola’s Germinal, Nana and L’Assommoir, and featured in Walton’s The Compleat Angler.
