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J. COLLIN DE PLANCYFIVE VOLUMES FROM THE BIBLIOTHÈQUE DES LÉGENDESIncluding the Rare 1861 First Edition of Légendes InfernalesDemons • Spirits • Apparitions • Hell • Purgatory • Supernatural FolkloreOriginal Polychrome & Gilt Publisher’s Wrappers PreservedChromolithographic PlatesMatching Decorative Leather BindingsParis: Henri Plon, c. 1861–1864
A striking matched group of five nineteenth-century works by Jacques-Albin-Simon Collin de Plancy (1794–1881), the celebrated French demonologist and author of the Dictionnaire infernal, drawn from his lavishly produced Bibliothèque des Légendes and including the scarce first edition of Légendes infernales (1861).
Of particular interest to collectors of demonology, supernatural literature, occult history, folklore, witchcraft, ghosts and nineteenth-century illustrated books, these volumes combine some of Collin de Plancy’s most fantastic subject matter with exceptionally attractive period book production.
The five volumes have been uniformly bound in handsome brown leather and marbled boards, while retaining their extraordinary original publisher’s color-and-gold illustrated paper wrappers inside. These preserved wrappers are an important feature. Contemporary examples remaining in their original fragile wrappers are frequently chipped, split or incomplete, and dealers specifically call attention to their survival.
The books also contain their original chromolithographic/color-and-gold illustrations, giving the group a considerably richer visual presence than ordinary editions of Collin de Plancy.
THE FIVE VOLUMES
1. Légendes Infernales: Relations et Pactes des Hôtes de l\'Enfer avec l\'Espèce Humaine
Paris: Henri Plon, 1861.
FIRST EDITION.
The outstanding volume in the group and one of Collin de Plancy\'s most desirable works outside the Dictionnaire infernal.
A specialist Paris bookseller describes the 1861 edition as “first edition, very rare.” The work contains forty-two legends concerning relations and bargains between humanity and the Devil, including the legend of Faust.
The title itself translates approximately as:
“Infernal Legends: Relations and Pacts of the Inhabitants of Hell with the Human Species.”
Subjects encompass infernal bargains, demonic intervention, temptation, apparitions and encounters between supernatural beings and mankind.
The dramatic color plate visible here, captioned “L\'Évocation,” depicts an infernal apparition, while the title page carries a large black-and-white illustration.
Most importantly, the spectacular original illustrated publisher\'s wrapper is preserved. The design shows St. Michael overcoming the dragon at center, surrounded by dragons, flames, tridents, occult/alchemical apparatus, an owl, skull, playing cards and other symbols, with a bat-like demon presiding above. This is the same wrapper specifically described in the specialist dealer\'s bibliographical description of the first edition.
The dealer\'s copy, still in its fragile original wrappers, is presently offered at €1,380, demonstrating the substantial market interest in this particular title and issue.
2. Légendes des Esprits et des Démons qui circulent autour de nous
Paris: Henri Plon, 1863.
Approximately 395 pages.
The title translates:
“Legends of the Spirits and Demons Who Move About Among Us.”
This volume explores an extraordinary assortment of supernatural beings and traditions: household spirits, elves, fairies, goblins, revenants, spectres, banshees, dwarfs, supernatural knockers and other spirits and demons.
The surviving table of contents visible in the photographs includes such subjects as:
Klabbers, Boléguéans or Poulpiquets, Elves, the Ourisk, Klabautermann, Cluricaune, Stalkers, Spunkie, fairies, Mélusine, Irish fairies, striking spirits, demons among the rabbis, mining demons, Orthon, the Banshee, revenants, elementary spirits, Rübezahl, hallucinations and numerous other supernatural traditions.
Google Books records this edition as Henri Plon, 1863, 395 pages, within the Bibliothèque des Légendes.
Especially useful for dating your example is the printed ecclesiastical approval:
Arras, 28 September 1863, signed by Pierre-Louis Parisis, Bishop of Arras, Boulogne and Saint-Omer.
The volume includes a magnificent color-and-gold plate captioned “La Fée au Pied de Biche.”
3. Légendes de l\'Autre Monde, pour servir à l\'histoire du Paradis, du Purgatoire et de l\'Enfer
Paris: Henri Plon, c. 1862–1863.
396 pages.
“Legends of the Other World, Serving toward the History of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell.”
One of the group\'s strongest supernatural titles, treating death, souls, ghosts, purgatory, hell and visions of the afterlife.
Recorded contents include:
the legend of death; legends of souls; revenants; purgatory; the purgatories of St. Patrick and St. Catherine of Genoa; the penance of Robert the Devil; Dante\'s Purgatory; legends of Hell; the classical underworld; Judas in Hell; St. Paul\'s descent into Hell; visions of St. Teresa; Muslim traditions concerning the afterlife; and legends of eternity.
Bibliographical records give editions around 1861–1863, with the 396-page Plon edition firmly belonging to this period.
A bookseller\'s comparable copy specifically records two chromolithographs, illustrated wrappers preserved, 396 pages, and dates the edition to 1863.
The striking chromolithographic plate in this copy, “L\'Âme du Roi Dagobert,” depicts the king\'s soul in an infernal boat surrounded by demons while angels appear above.
4. Légendes des Commandements de Dieu
Paris: Henri Plon, c. 1864.
Sixième édition, revue et corrigée.
396 pages.
A sixth revised and corrected edition of Collin de Plancy\'s legends built around the Ten Commandments, combining religious instruction with the author\'s characteristic taste for legend, strange history, supernatural incident and moral exempla.
Bibliographical copies of the Plon edition are recorded at 396 pages with two color plates, including examples in half-leather with the original publisher\'s wrapper preserved.
The chromolithographic plate shown here is captioned “Fridolin.”
5. Légendes des Commandements de l\'Église
Paris: Henri Plon, c. 1860–1861.
Approximately 396 pages.
Another component of the Bibliothèque des Légendes, devoted to legends surrounding the commandments and observances of the Catholic Church.
Bibliographical records identify the Plon edition as approximately 396 pages, published in Paris around 1860. Research into the Bibliothèque des Légendes identifies Les Commandements de l\'Église as the third volume of the series, with an original chromolithographic wrapper signed by Gillot, Hadol and Cordier.
The original color publisher\'s covers are again preserved within the later binding.
THE EXTRAORDINARY ORIGINAL WRAPPERS
One of the best features of this set is easy to miss from the spines alone.
These books were originally issued in spectacular fully illustrated polychrome and gilt paper wrappers. Rather than discarding those covers when the books were rebound, the binder preserved them within the volumes.
Specialist descriptions of other books in the Bibliothèque des Légendes repeatedly emphasize these wrappers, describing them as entirely chromolithographed and noting that surviving copies retain the illustrated covers.
Research on the series records the wrappers as color-and-gold printing associated with artists and craftsmen including Cordier, Gillot and Hadol. The collection was advertised as illustrated with large miniature-style pictures “in gold and colors in the manner of the Middle Ages.”
The infernal-themed wrapper is especially remarkable: demons and dragons, tridents, flames, alchemical glassware, skull, owl, cards and other mysterious objects surround the central imagery.
For an occult or demonology collector, these preserved covers are arguably almost as visually appealing as the books themselves.
ILLUSTRATION
The series was unusually lavish for popular religious and legendary literature.
The books contain large color / chromolithographic plates, often heightened or printed with gold, many within elaborate medievalizing ornamental borders, in addition to black-and-white illustrations and decorated title pages.
Comparable bibliographical descriptions regularly call for a frontispiece plus an additional chromolithographic plate in these volumes.
Among the plates visible in this group are:
“L\'Évocation” — a supernatural / infernal scene in Légendes infernales
“La Fée au Pied de Biche” — in Légendes des Esprits et des Démons
“L\'Âme du Roi Dagobert” — demons carrying the king\'s soul toward the other world
“Fridolin” — in Légendes des Commandements de Dieu
The rich reds, greens, blues and gold are exceptionally attractive against the lightly toned nineteenth-century paper.
COLLIN DE PLANCY: FROM DEMONOLOGIST TO CATHOLIC AUTHOR
These books occupy a fascinating point in Collin de Plancy\'s career.
Jacques-Albin-Simon Collin de Plancy (1794–1881) was a French author, publisher and demonologist whose great claim to fame remains the Dictionnaire infernal, first published in 1818. The Bibliothèque nationale de France identifies him as an author, bookseller and publisher and confirms his dates and career.
His intellectual trajectory was unusually dramatic. Initially a freethinker influenced by Voltaire, Collin de Plancy later reconciled himself with Catholicism and publicly announced his conversion. His subsequent writings carried ecclesiastical approval. He eventually worked with the publishing house of Henri Plon.
This makes these books particularly interesting.
They are not occult manuals or grimoires despite their demons, spirits, infernal pacts, revenants, supernatural beings and visions of Hell. Rather, they represent the later Collin de Plancy reinterpreting the enormous body of supernatural folklore he had collected through an explicitly Catholic framework.
That same transformation can be seen in the celebrated sixth edition of the Dictionnaire infernal of 1863, issued by Henri Plon and containing hundreds of illustrations, including the famous demon portraits associated with Louis Breton.
Thus Légendes infernales, Légendes des Esprits et des Démons and Légendes de l\'Autre Monde belong to essentially the same mature period in which Collin de Plancy produced the iconic 1863 Dictionnaire infernal.
That connection is worth emphasizing to collectors.
BINDINGS
A very attractive uniformly bound five-volume set.
Quarter brown fine-grained leather over vibrant multicolored marbled-paper boards.
Smooth spines elaborately decorated with repeating blind-stamped arabesque / strapwork ornaments, gilt circles and dots, curved gilt fillets, gilt compartment rules and gilt lettering.
The ornamental spines give the books a remarkably handsome appearance together on the shelf.
Marbled endpapers.
The original elaborately illustrated publisher\'s paper covers have been retained within the bindings.
Approximate format is octavo, around 22 x 14 cm based upon bibliographically recorded copies; I would replace this with your exact measurements before listing. The specialist copy of Légendes infernales is recorded at 22.5 x 14 cm.
CONDITION
Overall a handsome and appealing matched group, with bindings generally strong and the important original illustrated publisher\'s wrappers and color plates preserved.
Leather shows moderate rubbing, edge wear and occasional scuffing consistent with age. Gilt spine lettering and ornament remain attractive and legible. Marbled boards show general shelf wear.
Scattered foxing and spotting internally, variable from volume to volume and in places more pronounced around title pages and plates. Some general age toning.
The spectacular original publisher\'s polychrome and gilt wrappers have been preserved at the front and rear of the volumes and naturally show some age-related wear.
There are very thin, almost tissue-like blank/guard leaves adjacent to the preserved paper wrappers. In several volumes these leaves are lightly adhered to the wrappers in places. I have not attempted to separate them, as doing so could damage the fragile nineteenth-century paper. This appears associated with the earlier rebinding/guarding of the original wrappers rather than with the text itself.
Légendes des Commandements de l\'Église has the principal binding defect: the front inner hinge is separated/detached, although the front board remains fully attached by the intact endpaper structure. The volume can still be handled as a complete book but should be treated with care.
That same volume also has loss/chipping to the marbled paper on the rear board, clearly visible in the photographs.
Other bindings are substantially sound.
Some old paper adhesion/lifting can be seen near the preserved wrappers and preliminary leaves. Occasional edge wear, short marginal tears or small defects may be present.
Contemporary or early pencil bibliographical notes at the end of some of the tables of contents, apparently referencing related infernal/demonological works including Les Mystères du Diable and L’Enfer du Dante.
Please examine all photographs carefully, as they form an important part of the condition description.
COLLECTING INTEREST
This group crosses several collecting fields:
Demonology
Occult history
Devils and demons
Faust / demonic pacts
Ghosts and revenants
Spiritualism and spirits
Fairies and supernatural folklore
Witchcraft and superstition
Hell and Purgatory
Catholic supernatural literature
French Romantic / Gothic literature
Chromolithography
Victorian-era supernatural illustration
Fine and decorative bindings
History of the book
The combination of five matching volumes + preserved original chromolithographic wrappers + color plates + desirable supernatural subject matter + the 1861 first edition of Légendes infernales makes this a much stronger offering than an ordinary group of Collin de Plancy titles.
Bibliographical / market context
Specialist dealers currently offer ordinary individual Bibliothèque des Légendes volumes in original wrappers around €60–€70. A rebound Légendes de l\'Autre Monde retaining the illustrated wrappers and two chromolithographs has been offered at approximately £131, while another rebound example has been listed at €60.
Most importantly, the 1861 first edition of Légendes infernales, retaining its original illustrated wrappers, is currently catalogued by the respected Paris dealer Librairie Le Feu Follet at €1,380, where it is described as “very rare.”
This set offers that important title together with four related volumes in a visually unified nineteenth-century library binding.
