A Lady At Bay Translated by Richard and Clara Winston de Maass, Edgar - 1953

Charles Scribner's Sons. Very Good in Very Good dust jacket. 1953. Book Club Edition. Hardcover. The pages are clean, no tears or soiling. The pages and binding are tight. Yellow top-stained page edges. Pages are rough cut on middle page ends. There is a smudge on the upper right corner of the first page. The dust jacket is creased and tattered at the top and bottom from shelf wear. ; 8vo 8" - 9" tall; 309 pages; Translated by Richard and Clara Winston. In A LADY AT BAY Edgar Maass has re-created the true story of one of the most fascinating and mysterious women of the 17th century. She was the historic Marquise Marie-Madeleine d'Aubray de Brinvilliers, accused of poisoning her father and her two brothers so that she might come into possession of the family fortune. The story begins with the death of Godin de Sainte-Croix, a paramour of the Marquise, who died while preparing certain poisons. Among his papers was a document that aroused the suspicion of Lieutenant Desgrez of the Paris police. Desgrez's investigation led him first to Briancourt, a hysterical young lawyer-theologian who had been one of the lovers of the Marquise, but who now accused her of plotting to murder her whole family. From then on the trail seemed to become clearer to Desgrez, although it was hard even for the police officer to believe that such a beautiful and gently bred woman, high in the court circles of Louis XIV, could be a murderess. However, he finally brought her to trial in Paris before the Parliament, and this trial, with the resulting verdict, forms a magnificent climax to a tremendously exciting book. Will combine shipping on more than one book. .