THE CENTENARIAN; OR, THE TWO BERINGHELDS
Book Details + Condition: Arno Press (New York). First Edition thus, 1976. Part of Arno Press' hard-to-find "Supernatural & Occult Fiction" collection. By Horace de Saint-Aubin, pseudonym for Honoré de Balzac. Facsimile reprint of the original publication, originally released in 1822. Hardcover with purple boards and silver titling to front and spine. 454 pages. More than a long-lost curiosity by an important writer, "The Centenarian" is a Faustian tale, and a seminal work of early science fiction, crucial to understanding both the development of the genre and the craft of this great author. Beringheld, a 400-year-old "mad scientist," discovered the fluid necessary to human life, but he must extract the vital fluid of others to enlarge his own powers. Balzac intertwines the mythic and the modern in ways that would prove enormously influential to science fiction. Like Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, this novel bridges the gap that separates alchemy and magic from the practice and problems of science.
From the massive occult collection of King Lawrence Parker - academic, dissertation author, and book collector extraordinaire. Book is in near-new, unread condition, with firm binding, bright boards, and a clean interior. Please see our other listings for more rare Arno Press publications.
