Les Rois maudits
Copy that belonged to Maurice Druon, with his bookplate at the front of the first volume.
The nephew of Joseph Kessel, great-grandson of Antoine Cros — the third and last king of Araucanía (in present-day Chile) — and great-grand-nephew of the poet Charles Cros, Maurice Druon received the Prix Goncourt in 1948 for his novel Les Grandes Familles. But it was with the historical and literary saga of Les Rois maudits, the product of workshop-style 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, he had married the actress Janine Crispin in 1938; she would later appear in the 1973 television adaptation of Les Rois maudits.
Cited by George R. R. Martin, author of Game of Thrones, as the absolute model for the historical novel, Druon’s fresco opens at the beginning of the fourteenth century with the largest trial History has ever recorded: that of the Templars. Jacques de Molay, 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 kingdom: “Cursed, all of you cursed, unto the thirteenth generation of your line!”
From the library of Maurice Druon (bookplate; Paris, Millon, 2021, no. 3).
As new, in their original dust jackets.