Le Zombi. Pierre Corneille Blessebois. Limited Edition from 1870s. Very good condition.

Le Zombi is a memoir based on Blessebois’s exploits as an indentured servant after he was sold to the colonists of Guadeloupe.

It is believed to be the first published book of literature to make use of the word “zombi’, preceding Robert Southey’s use by more than 100 years.

They only made 500 of these books in the 1870s. The original story was written in 1697 by Pierre Corneille Blessebois who was an arsonist, libertine, murderer, prisoner, mercenary, galley slave… and, of course, an author. Translated into English for the first time in 2015, the book is described as, *a wicked tale of lascivious lust and lunatic desires, a strange concoction of prose and verse, set in the sexual and racial hothouse of colonial Guadeloupe. Based on Blessebois’s exile from France, some scholars believe that Le Zombi was published in the Antilles and, therefore, the first novel in French-colonial literature.

Complimentary U.S. shipping and handled with care.