LA-BAS (DOWN THERE) de Huysmans, J.K - (c 1972)

New York:: Dover Publications, , (c 1972). Very good in glossy illustrated wrappers (prev owner's name, highlighting to 4 lines on p 7 only.. Trade paperback. A classic novel of Satanism, originally published in France in 1891 and noted for its detailed and vivid description of the Black Mass, one which Huysmans himself attended. Although the novel centers on Durtal, a writer obsessed with the life of Gilles de Rais, a fifteenth-century child murderer, sadist, necrophile, and practitioner of all the black arts, Huysmans had firsthand knowledge of the satanic practices, witch cults, and the whole of the occult underworld which was thriving in late nineteenth-century Paris and in the city of Lyons. Translated by Keene Wallis. 287 pp.