1818. 12mo, pp. [2], 173, [1], with additional engraved title page with hand-coloured vignette, and five hand-coloured engraved plates including frontispiece; a little browned and dust-soiled, with a few small marginal tears but never with loss; with later signature on front paste-down; in contemporary publisher’s green cloth, spine lettered in gilt, head and tail of spine bumped and nicked, upper joint split and weak but holding. Scarce second edition, seemingly extra illustrated, (first 1813 as Les Histoires Merveilleuses, ou le petit peureux). An entertaining work for both parents and young children, intended to dispel superstitious fear of ghosts, spirits and things that go bump in the night, by instilling in them the importance of reason and courage to confront irrational fears. This second edition bears a variant engraved frontispiece to that found in the first edition, though which also bears the caption ‘Mr le curé va faire entrer le revenant’. An additional engraved title-page has been added, together with four further engraved plates, we believe not included in the first edition. All have been hand-coloured in the present copy, and are particularly striking and appealing.
The work of the educational writer Antoine Antoine de Saint-Gervais (1776–1836), the preface claims this to be the first work of its kind. According to Antoine, the noted philosopher John Locke suffered from a fear of the dark, on account of ghost stories told to him as a child by a servant. If even the great mind of Locke could be so affected, what hope for the rest of us, asks Antoine. ‘Nothing is more dangerous for new and inquisitive minds than such senseless tales... As it is almost impossible for the wisest and even the most attentive parents to protect their children from the talk of a foolish servant, or the tales of a sick imagination, it is therefore to reason that we must have recourse; with its help, we often succeed in destroying what stupidity and ignorance have established; but it is necessary to begin early: man loves the marvellous, he receives it avidly, and once he has begun to nourish his mind with it, it is very difficult for him to return to the truth, which seems too simple to him. It is to support the views of these sensible parents that I have composed the little work I present: it must please children with the marvellous stories it contains, and, what is essential, it must lead them to examine the causes of what seems supernatural to them; that is my goal. This book is the first of its kind intended for children’ (online translation of p. 6).
Adopting a conversational style, the stories revolve around the children of Monsieur and Madame de Verseuil, Albert, Victor and Cécile, and their governess Gertrude. The family had recently moved into an inherited gothic castle in Normandy, believed to be haunted, and it is not long before a series of ‘ghostly’ events begin to terrify the children. In an attempt to quell their fears, the parents, together with the village priest, encourage the children to question the evidence of their senses, and to use rational analysis to establish the causes behind the ‘supernatural’ phenomena they experience. One of the supposed spirits turns out to be nothing more than a simple bat. Further ‘scary’ stories are thus analysed and rationalised, until young Cécile finally announces to her mother that ghosts are only the product of a frightened imagination (p. 162). The children have been transformed from ‘petis peureux’ into ‘petis intrépides’ (p. 173).
The final leaf has an added date in pencil ‘Augst 27th 1842’, suggesting that a young English student has completed reading the work. A later English ownership inscription, dated 1892, has been added in ink to the front paste-down.