Les Rois maudits
One of the first 50 or 80 copies on Lana vellum, this copy no. 14.
The nephew of Joseph Kessel, great-grandson of Antoine Cros — the third and last king of Araucanie (now a region of Chile) — and great-grandnephew of the poet Charles Cros, Maurice Druon was awarded the Prix Goncourt in 1948 for his novel Les Grandes Familles. But it was with the historical saga Les Rois maudits, the product of workshop collaboration, that he achieved lasting fame. Among the collaborators he thanks in his preface are Gilbert Sigaux, Matthieu Galey, Pierre de Lacretelle, José-André Lacour and Edmonde Charles-Roux. The principal contributor was undoubtedly Georges Kessel, Joseph Kessel’s brother, a journalist who in 1938 married the actress Janine Crispin, who would later appear in the 1973 television adaptation of the series. A final volume was added in 1977, published by Plon.
Cited by George R. R. Martin, the author of Game of Thrones, as the absolute model of the historical novel, Druon’s fresco opens at the beginning of the fourteenth century with the largest trial History has recorded: that of the Templars. Jacques de Molay, the Grand Master of the Order, dies at the stake, hurling his terrible curse at the King of France, the Pope and the great men of the realm: “Cursed, all of you cursed to the thirteenth generation!”
A handsome set; slipcases rubbed.