Georges Rodenbach (1855-1898)

Death: 25th December 1898
Locaton: Cimetière du Père-Lachaise, Paris, Ile-de-France, France Plot: Division 15
Cause of death: Appendicitis
Photo taken by: Wp82
Buy books by Georges Rodenbach

Belgian Symbolist poet and novelist. His best known work is Bruges-la-Morte (1892), a short novel which is notable as it was the archetypal Symbolist novel and was the first work of fiction illustrated with photographs. The novel tells the story of a widower who takes refuge in Bruges where he lives among the relics of his former wife - her clothes, her letters, a length of her hair - rarely leaving his house. He becomes obsessed with a woman who bears a likeness to his dead wife. He courts her, but in time he comes to see she is very different to his wife and their relationship ends in tragedy. The plot of the book may have influenced the French crime novel D'entre les morts by Boileau-Narcejac, which was filmed in 1958 by Alfred Hitchcock as Vertigo.
Rodenbach's cousin, Albrecht Rodenbach, was also a poet and novelist, he was a leader in the revival of Flemish literature of the 19th century.

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