Cyprien Berard & Charles Nodier. Lord Ruthwen, ou Les Vampires. (1820 - FIRST FRENCH EDITION)

AUTHOR: Cyprien Berard and Charles Nodier. 

TITLE: Lord Ruthwen, ou Les Vampires.

PUBLISHER: Paris: Chez Ladvocat, Libraire, 1820.

DESCRIPTION: FIRST FRENCH EDITION. 2 vols., 6-3/4" x 4-1/4", with the half-titles, without the publishers 4pp. ads, otherwise complete, bound in contemporary 1/4 maroon calf, gilt decorated spines, vellum back corners, contemporary engraved bookplate of Madam Barante.

CONDITION: Inner and outer hinges fine, head and foot of spines fine, spines slightly sunned, internally clean and bright.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: First edition in French of Polidori's Vampires. This work, often mistakenly attributed to Charles Nodier, author of the preliminary observations (signed with his initials) is by Cyprien Berard, then director of the Theater de Vaudeville. He points out the popularity that the vampire had conquered at the end of the 18th century: "the frightening fable of the vampires could not fail to be consecrated among all the nations which received it in their belief... I have no doubt that the public grants, like me, another kind of rarer and more estimable merit to this novel...". France therefore lacked a literary production on vampires! Berard's work comes at the right time...It is by far the most interesting text that the first generation of French Romantics wrote." (Florent Montaclair, in: The Vampire in French Literature 1820-1868, p. 109).

SCARCE - RBH locate only two copies ever appearing at auction.