The Comte De Gabalis
by Abbé Nicolas-Pierre-Henri Montfaucon de Villars
edited and introduced by Joscelyn Godwin
This short novel of 1670 gave the literary world a lasting gift: the doctrine of Elementary Spirits (Gnomes, Nymphs or Undines, Sylphs, and Salamanders) and their relations with humans from Adam’s time to the present. Written as conversations between an all-knowing “Cabalistic” Count and a naïve narrator, it is full of amusing and outrageous claims, such as that all the great ones of the past were born from inter-species intercourse. Scholars suspect that Villars satirised contemporary credulity and the rise of Paracelsian beliefs in court circles. Esotericists, on the other hand, see his humor as a cover for secret doctrines and occult truths about the intermediate realms and their denizens.
About the Black Letter Press edition
This edition is based on the most curious of several attempts to enlarge on Villars’ novel. It was published in 1700, ostensibly in liberal Amsterdam but probably in Lyon. It follows Villars’ text with a midnight “Address to the Gnomes,” in which the Count exhorts them to take human spouses. A sceptical Viscountess joins the duo as the Count spins further yarns, including one about a musician who married a Sylph, learned magical tricks from her, and narrowly escaped execution. As a finale, Gabalis recounts how the fifteenth-century philanthropist Nicolas Flamel really got his wealth (not from alchemy).
The 1700 edition was also the only illustrated one, but that is the oddest thing of all. The figures are printed from actual woodblocks of Alciato's Emblemata dating from the 1540s (almost identical to those of the Black Letter Press’s 1534 edition). Someone must have discovered them and had the idea of adapting the text to refer to them, then cleverly integrating them into Flamel’s history.
To preserve the atmosphere of the original, the present volume reproduces a sprightly English translation of 1714, which exploited Alexander Pope’s use of Villars’ theme in The Rape of the Lock.
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Table of Contents
List of Illustrations
Introduction
PART ONE
DISCOURSE I: Meeting with the Count
DISCOURSE II: The Elementary Peoples, their Nature and Relation to Humans
DISCOURSE III: Pagan Evidences: Elementals as Source of Oracles
DISCOURSE IV: Biblical Evidences: Elementals in History and Theology
DISCOURSE V: Moral Qualities of Elementals and Our Duty toward them
PART TWO
The Count’s Discourse to the Gnomes
CONVERSATIONS WITH THE VICOMTESSE DE MARTESIE
THE FIRST DAY: Adam and Eve; the Musician; the Counsellor
THE SECOND DAY: The True History of Nicholas Flamel
Letter to Monseigneur
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Hardcover Edition
256 pages. Hardcover bound in royal purple Geltex, with gilding to the front cover and spine. Red endpapers. Printed on wood-free, age-resistant paper. Sewn book block, gold ribbon bookmark and headbands.
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Press, reviews, endorsements
Book Review by Foolish Fish - watch on YouTube here
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About the Editor
Joscelyn Godwin is a composer, musicologist, and translator, known for his work on ancient music, paganism, and music in the occult. He is the author, editor, and translator of many works in the fields of Western Esotericism and Speculative Music. For many years he taught at Colgate University in New York State.
