Le Bois du Templier Pendu by Henri Beraud, 1928, Illustrated by René Ben Sussan

Publisher:  Le Beaux Romans (Paris, France)

Publication Date: 1928

Construction:  Paper, Leather, Board

Dimensions:  8" Tall x 6" Wide x 1 1/2" Thick

Condition:  Fair condition. Brown leather cover shows significant wear/rubbing at corners and edges. Spine is detached. Front endpaper loose at crease. Minor toning at page edges. Interior binding tight and sound. Please see photos. 

Details:  Medium brown leather-bound volume with gold stamped lettering on spine.  Printed in the original French and illustrated throughout with lithographs by the Greek/French artist and illustrator René Ben Sussan.

Le Bois du Templier Pendu (The Wood of the Hanging Templar) is the first in a trilogy of novels about a fictional village in Dauphiné, France, from the Middle Ages to the Revolution.  Beginning in 1309 with the hanging of a Knight Templar fleeing King Philip the Fair, it relates the troubles and misfortunes visited upon the village, as foreshadowed by the Templar's ghost, who appears in the forest.

Henri Beraud was a French journalist and author, at one time the best-selling writer in France.  He would become known for his Anglophile and anti-Semitic beliefs, and would be sentenced to death in 1945 for collaborating with the Germans and Vichy government during WWII.  That sentence was commuted to one of life in prison by Charles de Gaulle.

René Ben Sussan , Greek/French artist and illustrator, active from the 1920s to the 1960s.  He is probably best known for is illustrations of literary classics.  Ironically, considering Beraud's principles, Ben Sussan was Jewish.