3 HISTOIRES EXTRAORDINAIRES
"LA SCARABEE D'OR"
(w/ English Translation)
Editions Serg is a publisher in France. In 1973, they put out a book that had been crerated in 1968, but, apparently, had somehow been sitting around for 5 years. I decided to "file" it under its creation date, not its publication date.
I think the story of how I came to find this book is worth telling...
At one of the Facebook groups I frequent, fan Yan Nick posted an ad for this book, which turned out to be from a French edition of VAMPIRELLA. I've seen so many POE-related books, often it's difficult to know what their contents are. Comics? Text stories with a couple of illustrations? "Illustrated stories", where it's a mix of about 50% of each? Sometimes I don't find out until after I've bought the book-- but this was too expensive to risk the money until I knew for sure. The answer came, surprisingly at the Todocoleccion selling site in Spain. Someone had posted several INTERIOR pages... and when I saw them, my jaw dropped. This book qualified as what I'd call a "Children's Book"-- the art took up 95% of the pages, with just a little text squeezed in! I KNEW I had to get a copy. Unfortunately, the one on sale at Todocoleccion had already been sold, some time before I ever found out it existed.
Since it was a French book, the next best bet seemed Rakuten-- formerly Price Minister. This site had often been confusing, but I had managed to successfully buy several books from there over the previous couple of years.
I put in for a copy, and waited. And waited. I waited far longer than is normally called for, before finally putting in for a refund. I have NO idea what happened to the book. Did it somehow get lost in the French postal system? After all, that entire country is under a state of chaos, with nation-wide strikes and the like going on. Or could it have been STOLEN off my porch? I'd had 2 mail-orders RIPPED open in the previous year... but in both cases, the item was left behind. I wound up getting myself a Post Office Box for the first time ever, in order to eliminate the chances of this happening again.
Worry about the chaos in France made me want to avoid going after anything else from there for the time being. Instead, I found another copy-- for substantially MORE money-- from a book-seller in Switzerland, who was listed on Abe Books. It arrived safely at my P.O. Box in 8 DAYS!!!
I was BLOWN away when I saw the book. It's a 9-1/2" x 12-1/2" paperback-- of a kind I have never seen before. The pages are still VERY white after 45 YEARS. I anticipate very little work on cleaning up the interiors (which will be a nice change from some of those Taika stories in Brazil). This is now quite probably the single most expensive book I've ever bought (so far), but I feel it was worth it.
This is my very 1st book from Switzerland, and although the book itself was created & published in France, due to the circumstances (described above), I keep referring to it as "the Swiss book".
This amazing book contains heavily-illustrated versions of 3 stories...
"LA SCARABEE D'OR"
"LA CHUTE DE LA MAISON USHER"
"METZENGERSTEIN"
1st up...
"THE GOLD BUG"
This is the 8th version of the story, following...
Manuel Lainez' TIT-BITS #1991 (Aug'47),
David C. Cook's SUNDAY PIX #1-14 (May 1-July 31, 1949),
Gilberton's CLASSICS ILLUSTRATED #84 (Jun'51),
Boy Scouts Of America's BOYS' LIFE (Jul'54),
Empresa Nacional's CAVALEIRO ANDANTE #453 (Sep'60),
Sea/Novaro's TESORO DE CUENTOS CLASICOS #51 (Nov'61), and
Thorpe & Porter's CLASSICS ILLUSTRATED #84 (Jul'62)
...the last one some 6 years earlier.
The artist is Alexis-Thomas Hinsberger. I know nothing about him, except that he did these 3 stories. The book contains a "Forward" that talks about him, and I've decided to translate that into English and include it along with the stories.
Most of the work I did here was in the English translation, and fortunately for me, for most of that I was able to use the original text by Poe!
ENJOY!
3 HISTOIRES EXTRAORDINAIRES
cover by Alexis-Thomas Hinsberger (Editions Serg / France / January 1973)
("Depot legal: 4 quarter 1968)
("THE GOLD BUG") / Version 8
"Extracts of Texts by Charles Baudelaire chosen by Robert Cottereau" /
Art by ALEXIS-THOMAS HINSBEGER
Page 11
Copyright (C) 1968 Editions Serg & Alexis-Thomas Hinsberger.
English Translation (C) 2020 Henry R. Kujawa.
Scans of 3 HISTOIRES EXTRAORDINAIRES from MY collection
with special thanks to Yan Nick
and Aline Berger at La Bergerie store in Switzerland.
Restorations by Henry R. Kujawa
For more:
Read about Edgar Allan Poe at The Poe Museum site.
Read about Edgar Allan Poe at the Biography site.
See more art by Alexis Thomas Hinsberger at the Millon.com site.
Read about THE GOLD BUG at the Book Riot site.
Read about THE GOLD BUG at the Grade Saver site.
Read the complete story at the Poe Stories site.
See the GOLD BUG Gallery of Illustrations.
Audio:
Hear the Vincent Price GOLD BUG recording!
Hear the FAMILY THEATER episode!
Comics:
Read the Amadio GOLD BUG adaptation! (coming soon)
Read the Joseph Wirt Tillotson GOLD BUG adaptation!
Read the Alex A. Blum GOLD BUG adaptation!
Read the Henry Sharp GOLD BUG adaptation!
Read the Fernando Bento GOLD BUG adaptation!
Read the Editorial Sea/Novaro GOLD BUG adaptation!
Read the Mick Anglo GOLD BUG adaptation!
Read the Alexis-Thomas Hinsberger GOLD BUG adaptation!
Read the Dino Battaglia GOLD BUG adaptation! (coming soon)
Read the Antonio Calmerio Tomas GOLD BUG adaptation!
(Coming soon:)
Read the Alfonso Font GOLD BUG adaptation!
Read the Guido Del Carpio Rivera GOLD BUG illustrated story!
Read the Arturo Arnau GOLD BUG illustrated story!
Read the Pablo Marcos GOLD BUG illustrated story!
Read the Novedades Editores GOLD BUG adaptation!
Read the Silvio Camboni GOLD BUG adaptation!
Read the Jorge Hardmeier GOLD BUG adaptation!
Read the Niesa Editores GOLD BUG adaptation!
Read the Jean-Louis Thouard GOLD BUG adaptation!
Read the Miguel Serratosa GOLD BUG adaptation!
Read the NBM / Papercutz GOLD BUG adaptation!
See the CHRONOLOGICAL list of Edgar Allan Poe stories!
See the ALPHABETICAL list of Edgar Allan Poe stories!
Don't miss the 2nd PART of this... coming up next!!!
(Continued in Poe 1968, Pt. 32)
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