Lacroix, Paul
Entry updated 12 September 2022. Tagged: Author.
(1806-1884) French bibliographer and author who published under a variety of names, including P L Jacob and Bibliophile, and who was possibly an anonymous collaborator with Victor Hugo (1802-1885) and certainly did anonymous work for Alexandre Dumas. He is of sf interest for La Danse Macabre: histoire fantastique du XVème siecle (1832 as by P L Jacob, Bibliophile; trans Brian Stableford as Danse Macabre 2013 as Lacroix), a violent and self-consciously decadent (see Decadence) exercise in Gothic SF, marred for contemporary readers by its antisemitism. The tale is set in fifteenth-century Paris; its ghoulish protagonist, who may be a literal Reincarnation of the souls and bodies he ingests, occupies the daylight hours with a theatrical presentation of the titular Danse Macabre [for Dance of Death see The Encyclopedia of Fantasy under links below] performed by reanimated skeletons. [JC]
Paul Lacroix
born Paris: 27 April 1806
died Paris: 16 October 1884
works (highly selected)
- La Danse Macabre: histoire fantastique du XVème siecle (Paris: Eugène Rednuel, 1832) as by P L Jacob, Bibliophile [binding unknown/]
- Danse Macabre (Encino, California: Hollywood Comics/Black Coat Press, 2013) [trans by Brian Stableford of the above: pb/Daniele Serra]
links
previous versions of this entry