Imaginary Life narrates the "life of some poets, gods, murderers and pirates, as well as several princesses and gallant ladies...". But it does not do so in the conventional way of biographers, who only appreciated "public life or grammar", "the ideas of great men" and those points where their lives "joined the general actions", but in an artistic way. Neither biographies nor history speak of the individuality of men, they only give dates and ideas. And what interests Marcel Schwob is precisely that which avoids all generalization, randomness, rarity, human extravagances. The author's own prologue exposes these differences and the motives of his book. "The protagonists are real: the facts can be fabulous and not infrequently fantastic. The peculiar taste of this volume is in that sway," wrote Borges, who never denied the influence of these imaginary Lives in his Universal History of Infamy.
