1836 Contes Fantastiques 1st Egmont Translation EARLY Vampire Story (Hoffmann)

Description: Contes Fantastiques de E.T.A. Hoffmann. Traduction nouvelle Precedee D’une Notice Sur La Vie et Las Ouvrages De L’Auteur; Par Henry Edmonton, Ornee de Vignettes d’Apres Les Dessins de Camille Rogier, Complete in Four Volumes, Bethune et Plon, A Paris, 1836, half leather bindings, 8.5 x 5.5”, 8vos. First edition of the translation by Henry Egmont (pseudonym of Henri Massé). + First printing of the 16 out-of-text figures by Camille Rogier, in a frame printed in blue, green or red chalk, engraved on steel by Garnier, Danois, Pourvoyeur, Boullay, etc. In fair condition. Spines darkened and abraded with desiccation and cracking. Heads and tails of spines scuffed. Lovely marbled boards are slightly scuffed with minor loss of pigment at bottom edges. Pencil ownership of J.E. Lodge on second end papers. Light toning throughout with evenly scattered foxing. All tissue guards intact. Light offsetting from plates. Bindings tight and intact. Please see photos. Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann (1776 – 1822) was a German Romantic author of fantasy and Gothic horror, a jurist, composer, music critic and artist. His stories form the basis of Jacques Offenbach's opera The Tales of Hoffmann, in which Hoffmann appears (heavily fictionalized) as the hero. He is also the author of the novella The Nutcracker and the Mouse King, on which Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's ballet The Nutcracker is based. The ballet Coppélia is based on two other stories that Hoffmann wrote, while Schumann's Kreisleriana is based on Hoffmann's character Johannes Kreisler. Hoffmann's works were introduced to France at the end of the 1820s, notably through a first translation in twenty volumes of the author's Complete Works by Loève-Veimars, published with an introduction by Walter Scott. At the top of the Fantastic Tales, Loève-Veimars inserted a biography which was the first to contribute to the development of the myth of the famous German author. It was from there that the romantic legend of Hoffmann was forged. By undertaking this new translation of Contes Fantastiques, Henri Massé, known as Henry Egmont (1810 in Paris - 1863 in Strasbourg) wanted to denounce this legend. In his preface, he seeks to reestablish the historical truth about the author, and attempts, in his translation, to repair the errors and mutilations that Loève-Veimars had introduced into his. During and before Hoffmann’s prime, however, the vampire was depicted as more of a cannibal or ghoul: eating the flesh of the recently dead. What’s more, far from being well-dressed or suave, vampires were depicted as a mix between a werewolf, zombie, and demon: a stinking, fetid corpse with mummified features, glowing eyes, and putrid flesh. Bram Stoker, J. Sheridan Le Fanu, and Lord Byron largely led to this change in visualization during the course of the 19th century. Stoker, naturally, introduced us to the courtly Count, inspired by the deep eroticism found in Le Fanu’s libidinous lesbian, Carmilla. Hoffmann’s own contribution to vampiric literature is interesting because it takes place on the verge of the shift – just after The Vampyre though prior to Carmilla (upon which it had a tremendous influence) – and contains both the Gothic gore and Victorian eroticism of their respective vampire mythologies. RAREF1836EOPX - 06/23 COLL1836QRPX - 11/24 - HKREV270

Price: 600 USD

Location: Harrisburg, Pennsylvania

End Time: 2025-01-16T16:43:08.000Z

Shipping Cost: 11.38 USD