SCIENCES OCCULTES Abbé MONTFAUCON DE VILLARS -... Lot 204

[SCIENCES OCCULTES] Abbé MONTFAUCON DE VILLARS - Le comte de Gabalis ou entretiens sur les sciences secrètes Jacques le Jeune, Amsterdam, 1671 - A fine copy of this rare counterfeit with sphere title, published one year after the 1670 original. Very elegant later binding signed Duru et Chambolle and dated 1862, in full red morocco, triple framed with gilt fillets on the boards, 5-rib spine, richly decorated caissons, title, place and date in gilt lettering, gilt roulettes on tail and head and gilt fillets on the edges. Borders in the same morocco and gilt lace on the back covers. Some rubbing, first cover partly browned but not seriously so, interior very fresh, edges entirely gilt. A superbly established copy. This is a famous work on the Kabbalah and Rosicrucianism, and more generally on the occult sciences, consisting of five ironic interviews between the Count of Gabalis and the narrator, and a letter. Written in a very light-hearted tone, the work is said to have cost the author his life, and he was murdered three years later during a trip, possibly by the Rosicrucians in revenge for the author's treatment of them in the book. The death of the Count de Gabalis is mentioned in the introduction, attributing it to the secrets he is said to have revealed. Some of these secrets deal with the existence of gnomes under the earth, then undines, sylphs and other fantasies. This edition is about as rare as the original, in any case much rarer than the 1671 edition published by Barbin. In-16, 228pp.