1828-1831 Memoires et Supplement aux Memoires de Vidocq: Chef de la Police de Surete Jusqu'en 1827

Description

Leather Binding, Scarce

An interesting six set of works, bound into three volumes, on Eugène-François Vidocq.

This set includes 4 volumes of Memoires de Vidocq: Chef de la Police de Surete Jusqu'en 1827, with Volumes I-II being published in 1828, and Volumes III-IV being published in 1829. Volume IV includes a portrait frontispiece.

Volumes should include a signature leaf to declare authenticity, of which only Volume IV in this set possesses. It is unsigned.

Also including the very scarce 2 volumes of Supplement aux Memoires de Vidocq; ou Dernieres Revelations Sans Reticence, with Volume V being the second edition, published in 1831, and Volume VI being published in 1830.

Bound without half title pages of Vol I, Vol II and Vol V. Lacking signature pages to three volumes of The Memoirs, with Volume IV's being unsigned.

Vidocq was a French criminal turned criminalist, whose life story inspired several writers such as Victor Hugo and Edgar Allan Poe.

According to his memoirs, Vidocq escaped from more than twenty prisons during his life of crime. However, turning to the other side of the law, he apprehended some 4000 criminals with a team of plainclothes agents. 

Vidocq was the founder and first director of France's first criminal investigative agency, the Surete Nationale, staffed with mainly convicts. When he was later fired, Vidocq became the head of the first known private detective agency.

He is considered to be the father of the French national police force and is regarded as the first private detective.

In quarter red morocco with marbled boards.

Volume I is compiled from Vidocq's notes by Emile Morice, and Volumes II, III, and IV are by Louis Francois L'Hertier.

Written by Louis Francois L'Hertier, incorporating old scandals and containing important material left over from The Memoirs.