ASMODEUS; OR, THE DEVIL ON TWO STICKS ... With a Biographical Notice of the Author, by Jules Janin. Translated by Joseph Thomas. London: Joseph Thomas, 1841. Octavo, pp. [i-ii] iii-xx 1-401 [402: printer's imprint], numerous illustrations by Tony Johannot, including a frontispiece with mounted illustration on India paper, mid-nineteenth century three-quarter black leather and marbled boards, spine panel stamped in gold, marbled endpapers. First printing of this translation. LE DIABLE BOITEUX, a classic French fantasy first published in Paris in 1707, was first published in English in 1708. The version translated by Thomas was first published in 1841. Le Sage's novel "imitated in framework and title from DIABLO COJUELO of Guevara (1641)" Asmodee, the "diable boiteux" is "released by Don Cleophas Zambullo from a bottle in which he has be imprisoned by an astrologer. To divert his benefactor, Asmodee lifts the roofs off the houses of Madrid and shows him what is passing within. This provides the author with an opportunity for a satirical picture of the Parisian society of the day in all its perversity." - Harvery and Heseltine (eds), The Oxford Companion to French Literature, p. 201. "Light, entertaining material that has served as the ultimate model for many diabolic tours for purposes of satire and amusement." - Bleiler, The Guide to Supernatural Fiction 1009. "Less a novel than a sequence of highly entertaining satirical episodes, ASMODEUS became the model for numerous narratives in which a demon gives a human being a magical tour of contemporary life and vice." - Barron (ed), Fantasy Literature 1-45. Locke, A Spectrum of Fantasy Volume II, p. 74. Bleiler (1978), p. 123. Reginald 08942D. Bound without the final leaf of ads (pages 403-04). Leather a bit rubbed at head and tail of spine panel and corner tips, frontispiece foxed, additional minor occasional foxing in the text, else a clean, tight, very good copy. (#95278).
Price: $150.00
No statement of printing.