CLAIRE LENOIR ... Translated by Arthur Symons. New York: Albert & Charles Boni, 1925. Octavo, pp. [i-vi] vii-xxxiv [1-2] 3-221 [222], original gray cloth, printed paper label affixed to spine panel. First edition in English. One of two short novels forming TRIBULAT BONHOMET (1887). "Sensational romance that veers outrageously from romantic rhapsodies to metaphysical speculation to supernatural horror in a conscious subversion of popular fiction, which it purports to be. Poesque homage in presentation of scientific and occult theories, juxtaposed with grotesque humor; again subverted in the person of the narrator Dr. Bonhomet, an absurd 'mad-scientist' prototype. Fantastic elements include metempsychosis, spectral manifestation and a sort of clairvoyance, imprinted on the retina of the eye at death. An entertaining bizarrerie, deeply ironic, and ambivalent in tone yet consistently brilliant in inspiration." - Robert Knowlton. Bleiler, The Guide to Supernatural Fiction 1634. Bleiler (1978), p. 200. Clute and Grant (eds), The Encyclopedia of Fantasy, p. 985. Reginald 14679. See Versins, Encyclopédie de l'Utopie, des Voyages Extraordinaires, et de la Science Fiction, p. 938. See Oxford Companion to French Literature, pp. 718 and 748. Several small stains (or fox marks) to page edges, else a very copy in very good printed dust jacket with shallow chip from upper spine end, some tanning to spine panel, and clipped price. A nice copy. (#170300).
Price: $150.00
No statement of printing.