The FEMALE BLUEBEARD: or, The Adventurer. Includes 'The Abbey of Saint Quentin, Being an Epilogue to The Female Bluebeard'.
London: W. Strange, 21, Paternoster Row. 1845. 1st UK edition (Wolff 6625). [4], 306 pp. Frontis, of Eugene Sue, and intratextual cuts by Walmsely, 34 total. 8vo. 7-3/8" x 4-7/8" Period deep maroon half-leather binding with muted purple cloth boards; elaborate gilt decorated backstrip. General extremity wear & rubs to leather. Foxing, primarily to frontis. Age-toning to paper. A VG copy. Item #14825.1
"'Bluebeard' is a French folktale, the most famous surviving version of which was written by Charles Perrault and first published by Claude Barbin in Paris in 1697 in Histoires ou Contes du Temps Passé. The tale is about a wealthy man in the habit of murdering his wives and the attempts of the present one to avoid the fate of her predecessors. 'The White Dove', 'The Robber Bridegroom', and 'Fitcher's Bird' (also called 'Fowler's Fowl') are tales similar to 'Bluebeard'. The notoriety of the tale is such that Merriam-Webster gives the word Bluebeard the definition of 'a man who marries and kills one wife after another'. The verb bluebearding has even appeared as a way to describe the crime of either killing a series of women, or seducing and abandoning a series of women." [Wiki]
This work, in the English edition, now a somewhat scarce title from this famous 19th C. French author- at the time of cataloguing, we find no copies have come to auction in the last 30+ years [per RBH], and we find no other copies available for purchase per the divers on-line sites [e.g., ABE].
Price: $395.00