SOULIE (Frédéric). Les Mémoires du diable. Paris, Ambroise D - Lot 367

SOULIE (Frédéric). Les Mémoires du diable. Paris, Ambroise Dupont, 1837-1838. 8 volumes in-8, brown half-chagrin, spine adorned with cold caissons (Period binding). First edition, except for volumes I and II, published in 1837 and here dated 1838. One of the author's most remarkable works, at the time as famous as Balzac, Dumas or Eugène Sue. Like Faust, and in the mode of the lame Devil, Baron de Luizzi sells his soul to the Devil, a cynical director of society's ugliness: scenes of kidnapping, rape, adultery and incest, with an irony that lends this novel an astonishing modernity. Very elegant contemporary binding. Some volumes bear a fictitious edition statement. Some foxing.