Complete suite of Buhot's five plates:
- “Le Bruit de deux sabots traînant”;
- “Le Soir même”;
- “À cette lueur soudaine”;
- “Je fis ce qu'on appelle un bon marché”;
- “On allume les cierges”
to which is added the portrait of the author by Rajon.
Some foxing in the margins of the engravings.
The Lemerre edition of 1878 forms the inaugural text of the Œuvres complètes of Barbey d’Aurevilly, which the publisher would continue issuing until 1889. Buhot did not regard these engravings as mere illustrations, but as extensions of the text. As Jean-Luc Dufresne recalls, the illustrations for L’Ensorcelée and Le Chevalier Des Touches were “produced spontaneously, without any commission,” by Buhot, who met Barbey d’Aurevilly in 1872; the writer in turn introduced him to the publisher Alphonse Lemerre. Barbey d’Aurevilly greatly admired Buhot’s work, saying that he “dreamed with a mind identical to [his] own.” Bénézit notes that, for this artist, “the best of his work lies in the delicate illustrations he made for several of Barbey d’Aurevilly’s novels… As an engraver he distinguished himself through the intense expressiveness of his prints and his profound knowledge of light and shadow effects…”
When these texts were published, Alphonse Lemerre sold the suites separately, so that they could later be bound into the volumes. Two issues exist: one on laid paper, the other on China paper.