PBA Galleries

[10], 271, [4] pp. With 19 etched plates by Serge Ivanoff, with tissue guards; decorations by Andre Hofer. 25x18.5 cm. (9¾x7¼"), three-quarter gilt-ruled green levant morocco & marbled boards, spine tooled &  lettered in gilt, marbled endpapers, top edge gilt, original wrappers bound in, No. 333 of 250 copies on Velin de Rives, from a run of 350 copies.

Handsome edition of D'Aurevilly's signature work, in the original French, Les Diaboliques (The She-Devils), a collection of short stories first published in 1874. Each story features a woman who commits an act of violence, or revenge, or some other crime. The entrancing etchings by Ivanoff are somewhat erotic, and a little kinky. Curiously, this copy has duplicate plates, bound in at pp. 226 and 242, and an additional loose plate, apparently never bound in and not duplicated within, for a total complement of 20 plates.