Joseph Balsamo

First illustrated edition with 64 plates by Philippoteaux. Clouzot erroneously announces 1863 for this first illustrated edition by Dufour, Mulat and Boulanger, confusing it with the edition published by Legrand and Boulanger. Placement sheet for the engravings at the end of volume 2.
Contemporary half black shagreen binding. Spine with false raised bands decorated with blind-tooled compartments and gilt fillets. Gilt title and volume number. Traces of rubbing. A tear at the foot of volume 1. Lower corners bumped. Scattered foxing. Lower edges rubbed.
Novel inspired by the life of Count Cagliostro, whose goal, at the head of a secret organization, is to overthrow the French monarchy. The work is dominated by the Illuminist current and animal magnetism which the Count uses as a great power. One encounters Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Swedenborg and Marat. Behind the secret organization, Dumas draws a portrait of Freemasonry. Count Cagliostro is one of the most captivating characters created by Dumas, a Machiavellian Don Juan of superior intelligence with quasi-supernatural powers.
The work would later be adapted for television by André Hunnebelle starring Jean Marais. Like all of Dumas's novels on each historical period, although each novel is conceived as a complete work, Joseph Balsamo is the first part of a tetralogy where the same characters intersect even though the story is different each time: Le collier de la reine, Ange Pitou, and la Comtesse de Charny.