NODIER Charles Inès de las Sierras.

Cluzot, 227 ; Vicaire, VI, 123.

First edition.

In Inès de las Sierras, Nodier wrote a tale that was at a crossroad between the fantastic short stories that had been flourishing in France since the 1820s and the English Gothic novel.

Three Napoleonic soldiers are forced to take shelter in a haunted Spanish castle. The story then unfolds the terrible tale of Ghismondo de las Sierras, who stabs his niece Inès after kidnapping her. Her ghost has been wandering ever since, returning every Christmas Eve. Nodier reactivates a number of topics typical of fantasy stories, from the young, frail victim to the multiple appearances of the supernatural in the real world. The ending of the tale, on the other hand, is innovative. Without rejecting the thesis of the extraordinary, the narrator argues that a plausible, scientific explanation is possible, but that knowledge is not yet within our grasp.

Cuvier and Linnaeus are mentioned, to link the fantastic and the rational. These scientists are said to have discovered dragons and unicorns in fossils. They are no longer in the realm of the marvellous and of folklore, but of the exploration of the world. This narrative springboard is inspired by the resolutions of noir novels, where subterfuge is revealed and the creatures are revealed to be anything but supernatural. Nodier bends this tendency by offering a reflection on science. Similar devices can be found in Poe or in the beginnings of the detective novel which flourished in the second half of the 19th century.

Somewhat foxed.