J. Collin de Plancy - Dictionnaire Infernal - 1863

Infernal Dictionary – Universal Directory of beings, characters, books, facts and things pertaining to spirits, demons, witches, the commerce of hell, divinations, maleficence, the cabal and other occult sciences, wonders, impostures, various superstitions and prophecies, and current facts of spiritualism, and generally to all marvelous, surprising, mysterious and supernatural false beliefs.

by Jacques Collin de Plancy

Sixth edition, augmented by 800 new articles and illustrated with 550 engravings, among which the portraits of 72 demons, drawn by M. L. Breton, after formal documents.

First issued in 1818, the Infernal Dictionary has, over its reissues, become one of the great French compendia devoted to demonology and belief in the supernatural. It lists in alphabetical order the demons, witches, grimoires, apparitions, divinations and popular superstitions. The text, originally divided into two volumes, was revised many times: six editions succeeded one another until 1863, each corrected and enlarged. The sixth, printed at Henri Plon, is the best known. Its title page proclaims eight hundred new articles and five hundred and fifty engravings, including the portraits of sixty-two demons drawn by Louis Breton. These figures, sometimes grotesque, sometimes strangely modern, have enjoyed enormous visual influence: they have been used to illustrate countless books on esotericism and demonology, up to contemporary editions, but have also inspired many artists, foremost among whom the surrealists. The work thus preserves a double value, as a document on the fears and beliefs of the nineteenth century, and as a landmark in the history of devil imagery.

Jacques Albin Simon Collin de Plancy (1793-1881) was initially a Voltairian spirit, skeptical of the superstitions he collected with irony. Converted to Catholicism in the following years, he partly disavowed his earlier writings and revised the Infernal Dictionary to align it with Catholic theology, affirming henceforth the reality of the devil. A prolific author, he also published works on relics, legends and prodigies, as well as The Devil Painted by Himself in 1825. Louis Breton, the designer of the 1863 edition, had trained in medicine and was passionate about seafaring scenes; his engravings of demons remain his best-known work.

Paris, Henri Plon, 1863, quarto (18 x 27 cm), 720 pages (out of 723). Quarter-brown leather binding, spine with five raised bands, title and author’s name in gilded letters. Binding rubbed, upper hinge of the back board split for about 5 cm. Missing on the edges of the front free endpaper, which bears a stamp on the verso. The same stamp appears on the title-page. Partial loosening of a few pages. Tear (no loss) of 19 cm on page 582. Missing in the lower corner of the last two pages. The book ends on page 720. The three last pages are therefore missing: 721, 722 and 723."