Théophile Gautier 18 min read

In a Parisian bric-à-brac shop, the narrator idly buys the embalmed foot of an Egyptian princess for a paperweight, and that night, the princess herself comes seeking to reclaim it.

Théophile Gautier's 1840 story is a charming, dreamlike classic of fantasy and light horror. Elegant, witty, delightful. Read it for a jewel of French Romantic fantasy, a whimsical, haunting tale of an ancient princess and her stolen foot, from a master of the graceful supernatural conte.

In its time

Published in 1840, during the 1840s, mystery, mesmerism, and the proto-scientific tale in the age of poe and gautier.

Reading it

18 min read (a short story, a single idea, delivered and gone).