Boucher de Perthes, (Jacques) - Nouvelles. Paris,... Lot 160

Boucher de Perthes, (Jacques) - Nouvelles. Paris, Treuttel et Wurtz 1832. In-12° modern half chagrin, title page preserved and pasted on a modern blue folio, 2 ff., 388 pp. First edition. "Boucher de Perthes published his only collection of short stories in 1832, at the zenith of Romanticism in France. [...] The ten tales in the collection are peopled by subterraneans, dreams and vampires, unsettling shadows and ghosts. "Paola" was undoubtedly born of the reminiscence of a Genoese adventure, perhaps mingled with the memory of Paola-Maria Bonaparte, and transfigured by the feverish imagination of the young Romantic. Paola is a woman-vampire with a strange gaze, who comes at night in the form of a black bird to prey on those she has chosen. Specters, ghosts, coffins, torn bodies, icy kisses on a grave at night - nothing is missing. [...] Other short stories in the Spanish, oriental and medieval vein are part of the moral inspiration that shrouds the shadows and mysteries of the dream. (Cohen and Hublin) Mazular is the story of a journey to the moon. C. Cohen and J.-J. Hublin, the romantic origins of prehistory. Versins, Encyclopédie de la science-fiction et de l'utopie, p. 124. Engraved bookplate M. and H. Hocquette. Uncommon. Scattered foxing.