A collection of stories about French prisons published in Mexico

Crimenes cometidos en las prisiones de Francia. Obra ilustrada con grabados de los mejores artistas [Two volumes]

[Dumas, Alexandre (père)]

Notes: A rather curious book. Published a few years after the emperor Maximilian I, who hade been installed by the French, was deposed and executed, I originally thought this was bit of anti-French propaganda. The catalog of the Biblioteca Nacional de Mexico (edited by José Vigil, 1890) attributes the book to the French journalist Clément Bertie-Marriott. However, it turns out to be a reprint of an 1855 book from the same publishers, issued under the title Las prisiones del estado, published in 1855.

The two volumes collect five long histories of French prisons. The three pieces in the second volume all turn out to be unattributed bootlegs of Alexandre Dumas (père) novels. I was unable to identify the source of the chapter on the Bastille, in volume one. The second part of volume one is Camille Leynadier's Le donjon de Vincennes.

viii, 258, 270 pages.

Edition + Condition: Good copies in typically Mexican quarter-leather bindings of the period. Heavily worn at the edges.

Publication: Mexico: Imprenta de I. Cumplido, 1874.

Item No: #307663

Price: $125