Despite its title, this book is not principally concerned with Huysmans, being in fact a collection of essays and articles covering a range of disparate, though arguably vaguely associated, literary subjects: Chateaubriand, Balzac's Comédie humaine, Max Jacob as a Catholic convert, and so on. It does, however, include Bily's previously published piece on Huysmans, 'Huysmans et ses amis Lyonnais', though not that essay's Appendix.

This example is one of XV numbered copies printed on vélin pur fil, and includes a dedication from the author to the Belgian literary critic, Émile Gérard-Gailly.