Early manuscript copy - apparently English in origin - of a French novel of diabolic seduction that has inspired everyone from Jacques Lacan to Jonny Depp.
Small quarto (16.5x20.5cm) bound in (likely) English full sheep, rubbed with some loss close to outer hinges but boards remain well attached. No decoration apart from a gilt roll to the edge of the boards. The paper stock has a Britannia watermark and horizontal chainlines; light green edges to the text block. The manuscript text appears to be copied from the anonymous Neapolitan edition of 1772, without Cazotte’s name attached to the text, beginning with the editor’s foreword, ‘Avis de L’Editeur’ [pp] 5 followed by ‘Le Diable amoureux nouvelle espagnole, pp 1-90, including the characteristic song and musical notation which appear in this manuscript at pages 49-52. The text of the novel is written in an easily legible cursive hand, set out within a pencilled box and neatly paginated. The combination of an English sheep binding and the Britannia watermark strongly suggests that this copy manuscript was made by an English reader abroad or indeed in the United Kingdom itself. Cazotte’s influential novel tells the story of Biondetta (the devil in the guise of a beautiful young woman) who attempts to seduce Don Alvaro. It is seen as the instigator of the demonic subgenre and has been described by one French critic as ‘the very initiator of the modern fantasy story’. The Devil in Love has been widely adapted and reinterpreted by everyone from Jacques Lacan to Jonny Depp in The Ninth Gate, itself an adaptation of Perez-Reverte’s The Dumas Club, both of which drew inspiration from this text.
