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BOREL, Petrus.
Madame Potiphar.
Paris, Ollivier, 1839.
Fees include commission and taxes.
Madame Potiphar.
Paris, Ollivier, 1839.
2 volumes in-8, frontispiece, 446 pp. and frontispiece, 475 pp. 19th-century red morocco with long grain, spine with false raised bands, author, title, volume number and date gilded, gilded border of fillets and gilded dies on the panels and covers, double gilded fillet on the headbands and footbands, three gilt fillets and a gilt scroll on the spines, original cover preserved, gilt edges [Mercier, Sx. de Cuzin] (very slight foxing on the frontispiece of volume 2).
Escoffier, 1343. Vicaire, I, 865.
First edition.
Complete with frontispieces by Louis Boulanger (one of which is signed), engraved by La Coste on wood and printed in black on China paper.
Only one copy in the CCFr (BnF).
A fine copy in an elegant original binding by Mercier.
A noir novel, one of the rare French equivalents of the English Gothic novel.
The most important work by Pétrus Borel (1809–1859), known as the ‘lycanthrope’, a figure of Romanticism long underestimated. Rehabilitated by André Breton and now recognised as a representative of ‘frénétisme’, a movement characterised by the quest for an unattainable absolute, generating an existential malaise expressed through cynicism, paroxysmal emotions or hallucinations induced by hashish, opium or alcohol. With a scandalous reputation due to a claimed affinity with Melmoth or Sadean writing, and seeking to portray the 18th century as a dark age, Borel uses the trope of Mrs Potiphar, a biblical character (Genesis 39), a lecherous temptress abusing her power, as a metaphor for Madame de Pompadour, whom he regarded as the embodiment of the corruption of female power.
“An important and sought-after work.” (Carteret, I, 142).