Alexandre Dumas ~6 hr read

Wronged and humiliated, the shoemaker Thibault strikes a bargain with a great wolf-devil that grants him the power to command the wolves, and to wish harm on his enemies, at a terrible price.

Alexandre Dumas's 1857 novel is an atmospheric folk-horror fantasy. Vivid, dark, superbly told. Read it for a lesser-known gem by the master of The Three Musketeers, a Faustian werewolf-tale drawn from French peasant legend, in which a vengeful cobbler's diabolical bargain leads him, wish by wish, toward damnation.

In its time

Published in 1857, during the 1850s, fairy tale and moral fantasy for a mass reading public; the sensation novel stirs.

Reading it

~6 hr read (a novel-length work, settle in).

Illustrated by

Frank Adams