Synopsis Les Onze Mille Verges tells the story of a Romanian prince who comes to Paris in search of fame, excitement, and sexual adventures. Leaving France, he travels to St Petersburg and ends up in the battle-torn Manchuria of the Russo-Japanese war. From the Back Cover For nearly seventy years this novel remained a legend before being published in 1973. In 1907 Guillaume Apollinaire, one of the most original and influential poets of the twentieth century turned his hand to the novel. Strapped for cash, he produced two books for the clandestine market, the finer one of these was Les Onze Mille Verges. One of the most masterful and hilarious novels of all time, it was once owlishly pronounced by Picasso to be Apollinaire's masterpiece. Guillaume Apollinaire (1880 - 1918) was an art critic and poet who had significant influence on the French avant-garde of the early 20th Century. An important modernist figure, he is frequently linked with such diverse movements as Cubism and Futurism and is said to have coined the term Surrealism.