Les farfadets ou tous les démons ne sont pas de l'autre monde

First edition printed in 400 copies and illustrated with 8 plates outside the text, including one folding plate, as well as a portrait of the author as frontispiece. Berbiguier destroyed almost all copies after publication.

Contemporary bindings in half brown sheep, smooth spines decorated with quadruple fillets, dentelles and gilt fleurons, red morocco title and volume labels, grained paper boards, all edges marbled.
Two minor wormholes at the head of the second volume. Enigmatic and very fine pinhole marks at regular intervals on all three spines.
Bookplate of the R. & B. L. library pasted on the front pastedown of the first volume.
« L'époque où Berbiguier compose ses mémoires est propice aux croyances démonologiques, suite à la grande Inquisition et à l'illuminisme du XVIIIe siècle, qui marquent profondément le XIXe siècle à travers, entre autres, un engouement pour l'occultisme. Ce n'est donc guère étonnant que la figure de Satan imprègne Les Farfadets et que la sorcellerie se manifeste dans le récit sous la forme de la persécution. Le XIXe siècle voit également le développement de la psychiatrie, par l'entremise de travaux de grands aliénistes, tels que Henry Ey et Philippe Pinel, dont Berbiguier sera justement le patient. Pinel, que l'auteur considère littéralement comme le « représentant de Satan » dans sa nomenclature des farfadets, ne réussira guère à le délivrer des supplices des démons invisibles, réels uniquement pour le seul tourmenté. » ["The period when Berbiguier composed his memoirs was propitious for demonological beliefs, following the great Inquisition and the illuminism of the 18th century, which profoundly marked the 19th century through, among other things, a craze for occultism. It is therefore hardly surprising that the figure of Satan permeates Les Farfadets and that witchcraft manifests itself in the narrative in the form of persecution. The 19th century also saw the development of psychiatry, through the work of great alienists, such as Henry Ey and Philippe Pinel, of whom Berbiguier would indeed be a patient. Pinel, whom the author literally considers as the 'representative of Satan' in his nomenclature of farfadets, would hardly succeed in delivering him from the torments of invisible demons, real only for the sole tormented one."] (Ariane Gélinas, « Le "Fléau des farfadets", Écrire (sur) la marge : folie et littérature, Postures, no 11, 2009)

Handsome copy, very rare in elegant contemporary binding, of this astonishing text written by "the most famous of hallucinated monomaniacs" (Dictionnaire encyclopédique des sciences médicales).