Bruges-la-Morte

"Bruges-la-Morte" is a short novel by the Belgian author Georges Rodenbach, first published in 1892. The title is difficult to translate but might be rendered as "The Dead City of Bruges". It tells the story of Hugues Viane, a widower overcome with grief, who takes refuge in Bruges, where he becomes obsessed with an actress he sees at the opera "Robert le diable" who is the exact likeness of his dead wife.

The book is notable for its poetic evocation of the decaying city and for its innovative form: Rodenbach interspersed his text with dozens of black-and-white photographs of Bruges. As such, the novel influenced many later writers, including W.G. Sebald. The plot of the book may also have had an indirect influence on Alfred Hitchcock's film "Vertigo". In 1920, the composer Erich Wolfgang Korngold used the novel as the basis for his opera "Die Tote Stadt".

In the novel "To Catch a Thief" by David Dodge (but not in the Hitchcock movie based on this Dodge novel) John Robie's friend Paul (same name as the widower in the Korngold opera) sees and courts a girl who is the double of his dead wife Lisa.