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Octavo, pp. [1-4] 1-352, three quarter crushed red morocco and marbled boards, spine panel lettered and tooled in gold (floral inlays, raised bands), t.e.g., other edges untrimmed, marbled endpapers, front, rear and spine panels of original blue-gray wrappers printed in red and black preserved (binding signed "Stroobants"). First edition, first issue. "Mixed collection including supernatural tales, scientific romances and morbid studies, somewhat after the manner of Poe, but distinctively Villiers throughout. Ironic, layered, densely textured pieces that allude more than they state, standing on the watershed between Poe and the Decadents and modern psychological horror. The calculated intention of these contes cruels is to shock and disturb, in order to subvert the reader's sense of complacency, and safety. This remains a very contemporary agenda, on the whole." - Robert Knowlton. A genuine landmark in the development of psychological horror fiction." - Barron (ed), Horror Literature 2-95. "Villiers de l'Isle-Adam was an aristocrat whose life, rich in pretension, degradation, and tragedy, reads like one of his own contes cruels. He came from an autocratic family and wrote his stories to little acclaim, until they were collected in 1883. Worn by privation, debt, and finally cancer, he died wretchedly, although at the height of his recognition. His stories are elegantly and even superciliously told, as if they were mere anecdotes of the idle and cruelly imaginative aristocrat; however, many of the plot lines and characters are based on incidents from his own life. Irony underscores a number of the tales, sometimes lightly, more often bitterly. Villiers de l'Isle-Adam was father to the Grand Guignol Theatre of Paris." - Sullivan (ed), The Penguin Encyclopedia of Horror and the Supernatural, p. 442. "This master-storyteller combines a high romantic sensibility with a devastating antibourgeois irony. 'Living? Our servants will do it for us.'" - Connolly, The Modern Movement: 100 Key Books from England, France and America 1880-1950, #3. Ashley, Who's Who in Horror and Fantasy Fiction, p. 175. Clute and Grant (eds), The Encyclopedia of Fantasy (1997), p. 985. Clute and Nicholls (eds), The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (1993), pp. 1282-83. Sullivan (ed), The Penguin Encyclopedia of Horror and the Supernatural, p. 442. Tymn (ed), Horror Literature 3-242. Bleiler (1978), p. 200. Not in Reginald (1978; 1992). A review copy with publisher's stamp on half title page, "Offert par l'Editeur à M." Corner tips rubbed, rubbing along outer joints, still a lovely copy. Enclosed in a custom quarter leather velvet lined clamshell box with rounded spine and leather spine labels. (#168013).
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