Jacques Cazotte (1719 – 1792)
Parent categories: 1700s literature - French literature - fantastic literature - 1770s - fantastique - devil - love
"Je suis le Diable, mon cher Alvare, je suis le Diable." -- The Devil in Love (1772) - Jaques Cazotte
Contemporaries: Denis Diderot - Jacques Fabian Gautier d'Agoty - Horace Walpole - Piranesi - Immanuel Kant
The Devil in Love (1772) - Jaques Cazotte [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Biography
Jacques Cazotte (October 17, 1719 – August 25, 1792), was a French author. The most popular of his works was the Diable amoureux (1772), a fantastic tale in which the hero raises the devil. The value of the story lies in the picturesque setting, and the skill with which its details are carried out. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Cazotte [Jan 2006]
The Devil in Love (1772) - Jaques Cazotte
Alvaro falls in love with Biondetta, a devil-woman.
Le Diable Amoureux (The Devil in Love, 1772) is an occult romance by Jacques Cazotte which tells of a demon, or devil, who falls in love with Alvaro, an amateur human dabbler, and attempts, in the guise of a young woman, to win his affections.
The Le Diable Amoureux started a literary style known as fantastic fiction, where surreal events intrude on reality and the reader is left guessing whether the events actually occurred or were merely the product of the character's imagination.
The book served as inspiration for, and is referred to within, Spanish author Arturo Perez-Reverte's novel The Club Dumas (El Club Dumas, 1993). Roman Polanski's 1999 adaptation of the novel, The Ninth Gate, stars Johnny Depp as rare book dealer Dean Corso. Corso is hired to compare versions of a book allegedly authored in league with the Devil, and finds himself aided by a demon in his adventure. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Diable_amoureux [Jun 2006]